The Malfoy Alphabet
by enchanted.teapot
Summary: A to Z. Rose Weasley has twenty-six very good reasons why not to fall for Scorpius Malfoy. Looks like that might not be enough...
1. A is for Arrogance

**The Malfoy Alphabet**

A is for Arrogance

Rose Weasley was tired; tired, filthy and utterly fed up. Her evening in the Forbidden Forest hadn't been without its highlights; fifteen minutes spent hiding in an Absynnian shrivelfig bushel because Oliver Flint had _sworn_ he'd heard hooting had been a particular favourite, but now she'd had quite enough. And yet, she thought as she pulled yet another twig from her matted brown hair and wiped a smear of shrivelfig sap from her cheek, even _this_ detention had been worth it.

Earlier that same evening, Professor Patil had called Rose into her office, a knowing smile on her lips and Rose's latest Charms essay before her on the desk. It had been obvious as soon as she'd read the first paragraph that the young Miss Weasley had gone above and beyond with her recent assignment.

Perhaps it had been wrong, Rose thought idly as Flint muttered to himself beside her, to break into the restricted section after curfew for that last crucial piece of research? But then again, she grinned, Professor Patil had still given her that all important grade, there'd been no denying that her essay had been an academic masterpiece, the likes of which had never been seen from any other sixth year. Except perhaps her mother...

Rose turned her scowl on her unwilling companion as he ripped his robes on a low hanging branch and swore loudly. The constant comparisons between herself and her parents had gotten a little tiresome over the years –"the brains of her mother and the reckless abandon of any true Weasley,"- it was so cliché it was positively maddening. But, it seemed to amuse her professors, ignite that old nostalgic flame for those who had taught or learnt alongside good ol' mummy and daddy, and so Rose would nod and smile and blush appropriately until the mention of punishment was long forgotten. Tonight however, she hadn't been quite so lucky.

"Flint for the last time will you _please_ watch where you're going?" Rose stressed, irritation flashing in her warm amber eyes as Oliver stood on her heels yet again.

He rolled his eyes in answer and continued muttering darkly to himself, clearly in one of his infamous crabby moods. Rose simply sighed and kept picking her way carefully through the undergrowth, supposing that if she, too, had had the misfortune to inherit Flint Senior's looks, she'd probably be pretty grumpy most days as well. Yet, despite the knee-jerk reaction to gasp in surprise at the sight of his unusual dental arrangement and oddly angled nose, Oliver Flint had found himself quite a cosy little set up there at Hogwarts. A Slytherin, naturally, Flint could commonly be found lounging in hallways or lazing on the lawns with all his Quidditch-hero buddies, a group Rose had about as much time for as she did for the game itself. And as anybody who had ever watched Rose Weasley on a broom could tell you, that was very very little indeed.

Oh it wasn't the fact they were Slytherins, those old rivalries had dwindled and died over the last decade, no her dislike had more to do with their general attitudes than it did their family history. The way they would turn up to class fifteen minutes late, their ties hung loosely around their necks and slide into their back row seats with an air of infuriating casualness, the way they would grin and wink and chuckle at girls in the corridors before using a Leviosa charm on the back of their skirts, even the way they would shout down the Great Hall at dinner and punch each other on the arm like well-trained gorillas; it all morphed together to become a constant, dull irritation like the throb of a prolonged headache.

Luckily for Rose, the Gryffindor Tower was about as far away from the Slytherin dungeons as you could get within the castle and so she had the luxury of forgetting that particular group of loud-mouths actually existed except for the odd occasion she wound up in detention with the latest crony to be caught brawling in the halls.

"So what did you do to wind up here then Weasley?" Oliver cut through her thoughts as he thudded his boots against a tree stump in an attempt to dislodge the clumps of mud. "Break into the library or something?"

She arched a slim eyebrow as he snorted in amusement behind her. This really wasn't helping her steadily declining mood. "Yes actually. What about you? Break another mirror?" It was a cheap blow but it made her feel a little better. Luckily Flint wasn't particularly quick on the uptake.

"No..." He frowned in confusion. "Some second year gave me the finger so I taught him some manners."

"Thank Merlin you didn't let _that_ crime against humanity go unpunished." Rose muttered, closing her eyes as she rubbed the back of her neck with a sigh. She was utterly exhausted, they'd been out here for at least two hours looking for Ashwinder Eggs that Madame Pomfrey needed to combat a bad case of Ague. Hagrid, who rarely made these trips into the forest anymore due to his health, had told them there were only two known nesting sites of the Ashwinder snake and after Oliver had tripped and sat on one of them, even this seemingly ridiculous task had become near enough impossible.

"Come on, let's go. We've been out here all night, even _you_ can't argue we've done a detention's worth." Flint yawned, leaning back against a tree and looking at her pleadingly. Rose ignored the jibe. She had to admit he was right, and she really could do with a shower. That shrivelfig sap really had a distinctive smell...

Together, they set off back the way they had come, Oliver whistling away, until the lights of the castle came back into view.

"Hey Weasley?" He cleared his throat. "You know that friend of yours? The blonde with freckles-"

"Penny." She muttered, knowing exactly what was coming.

"Yeah, Penny Finnigan right? You er, you know if she's seeing anyone right now?" Oliver ran a hand through his hair in a desperate attempt to act casual.

Rose rolled her eyes. Penny Finnigan had been her friend since that first tentative smile as they waited side by side for their turn with the sorting hat. As the years had passed, their closeness had remained unchanged but Penny had not. And the boys had definitely noticed.

"Not that I'm aware of." Rose attempted to hoist her mass of hair into a bun. It wasn't proving easy with the extra foliage she'd been collecting all evening.

"Well, maybe you could mention me to her, you know, now that we're friends an' all?" Oliver grinned down at her lopsidedly and gave her a slightly too forceful nudge on the shoulder that sent her stumbling up the castle steps.

She turned at him in despair as she regained her footing. "Flint, if you think being forced to spend an evening clambering through mud and slime and Merlin knows what else with someone lays the foundations for a beautiful friendship then-"

"Flint mate! Where've you been all night?" The shout across the entrance hall cut her short and she turned, with a scowl to find a Mr Scorpius Malfoy striding towards them with a grin, his pale blonde hair falling over his forehead as he wiped a smear of something red from his neck. Behind him, a pretty fifth year girl stood leaning against the water fountain for support, smiling dumbly with a glazed over look in her eye. Rose noticed idly that her lipstick was a little smeared.

"Alright Malfoy." Flint grinned with a nod towards the girl who had just tripped over her own feet as she headed dazedly for the stairs. "Not interrupting anything I hope?"

Scorpius glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. "Just a bit of late night entertainment. Anyway, what happened to practice after dinner?"

"Went and got detention again didn't I?" Oliver shook his head as if in disbelief.

"Shocking isn't it?" Rose muttered to herself, and immediately wished she hadn't. Scorpius, who till this point seemed not to have realised she was there, suddenly turned his gaze on her. His light blue eyes were sharp and steady as they took in her appearance. Rose attempted to subtly wipe the dirt from her nose.

"Anyway," He glanced away quickly. "You know if you miss another one Goyle's going to have your shirt."

"Not likely. Best beater Slytherin's ever seen." Flint grinned and jabbed himself in the chest as he began heading for the Dungeon stairwell. "Goyle said so herself."

Scorpius shook his head and laughed, falling into step beside him. "Cocky git."

"Ha! So says Scorpius Malfoy! Oh..." Oliver stopped and turned back to face Rose, who had remained awkwardly by the doors, watching the laddish display with disdain. "I'll er, see you round Weasley." He added with a meaningful nod that spoke strongly of Penny Finnigan.

"Oh and-" Rose hesitated as Malfoy turned to her and arched an eyebrow. "You might want to think about a change of robes."

As her blush grew, so did his smirk and she had just enough time to send a poisonous scowl in his direction before he was gone, down the stairs, his laughter ringing out off the stone walls. She glared down at her filthy clothes, her cheeks red hot in indignation before spinning round and storming up the stairs.

"Arrogant prat." She muttered darkly, stomping her way to bed. "Scorpius...as if that's even a real name."

It had not been a good night.


	2. B is for Bravado

**The Malfoy Alphabet**

B is for Bravado

"You'll never guess what!"

Rose raised an uninterested eyebrow and continued buttering her toast. "Hugo's finally got himself a girlfriend?"

Penny Finnigan, who had rushed into the hall waving a copy of the Daily Prophet manically above her head, smiled fondly as she glanced down the Gryffindor table where Hugo Weasley was busy lining up his breakfast in alphabetical order.

"Err, not quite." She slapped the paper down on the table and jabbed at the first page with a slender, French manicured finger. "Look! Your Dad's done it again! He's got that gang of rebels down in South London tormenting muggles. Want to read it?"

Rose glanced at the large picture on the front cover, her Dad beaming proudly back at her, and shook her head without a word. Penny frowned and snatched up her paper again.

"Fine, I'll read it to you." Rose rolled her eyes and took a large bite of her toast. "Mr Ronald Weasley, 42, Co-Head Auror at the Ministry of Magic, released a press statement today detailing his department's successful apprehension of the criminals behind the recent-"

"Ah, so it wasn't exactly _him_ that did it then was it?" Rose pursed her lips and waved her knife around smugly, pouring the both of them a glass of pumpkin juice and reaching for a pastry.

Penny sighed and tossed the paper down onto the table. "I don't know why you always get so ratty about your parents. I wish mine were as exciting as yours."

"Penny," Rose laughed in bewilderment. "Your Dad's the manager of the Irish national quidditch team-"

"Yeah and do you know how many times he's attempted to explain the offside rule to me? That stuff is as boring as Hell."

"I didn't think you could ever be offside in quidditch..." Rose mused.

"Oh well let me tell you all seventeen ways in which you can be very much offside!" Penny shook her head with wide eyes as she wrangled with a grapefruit.

"Seventeen?!"

"There's actually twenty-three, I just can never remember the last six. Anyway," Penny leant forward and arched an eyebrow, her light dusting of freckles dancing about her face as she did. "What got into your knickers last night?"

Rose almost choked on her juice. "I beg your pardon?"

"I mean..." Penny rolled her eyes. "What got you so pissed off you felt the need to throw your toothpaste at Jennie Macmillan's head when she came to return your book last night?"

Rose grimaced with embarrassment, making a mental note to apologise to poor Jennie at the first opportunity. "Oh, you err, you noticed that did you?"

"Well it was hard to ignore her shriek of terror even from the bathroom," Penny muttered with a badly hidden smirk. "And then of course the room smelt oddly of peppermint for the rest of the evening..."

Rose scowled. "Well, in my defence, she did return it two days late and I mean, that's just bad manners-"

"Rosie..." Penny pursed her lips.

"Oh fine, it was Malfoy." Rose stabbed roughly at the last of her pastry.

Penny frowned. "Malfoy? Since when have you been socialising with Scorpius?"

"Oh _Scorpius_ is it?" Rose widened her eyes.

"Don't read anything into it." Penny waved it off. "I'm on your side...whatever inexcusable, atrocious act he may have committed. Which err, was what exactly?"

"He told me I should change clothes."

Penny blinked. "Why would he do that?"

"Well they were dirty."

Penny blinked again. "Right...God what a bastard."

"You're mocking me!" Rose glared as she stood up, swinging her satchel over one shoulder and heading out the hall as Penny protested beside her. "I'm telling you he was really rude! And then he did that horrid little smirky thing he does, you know when he thinks he's managed to come up with something really clever. I mean honestly _'think about a change of clothes'_ – gosh how unbearably witty of you Malfoy." Rose shook her head and glanced across at Penny who was smiling and waving at James Potter as she walked. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Hmm sorry?" Penny smiled sheepishly, her freckles hidden by a sudden dusting of blush to her cheeks.

"As much as I love to see you flirting with my cousin before Herbology, I'm trying to vent my rage here."

Penny giggled and linked arms with her friend, her long, sandy blonde hair bouncing off her shoulders as she walked. Together, the girls headed out into the grounds and down to the greenhouses and before she knew it, Rose found herself laughing away, her bad mood evaporating in the morning sunshine.

Until that is, the Slytherins arrived. "Watch out for the compost heap Weasley, wouldn't want you getting all filthy again would we? That'd just be unpleasant for everyone."

Rose's head snapped up from her Bubotuber with a glare already in place. The whole stupid lot of them were chuckling away, all except Scorpius himself however, who simply smirked and added a wink to the fleeting glance he gave her. Squeezing the poor plant so hard that it spurted pus all over an unsuspecting Lorraine Davies, Rose felt herself burning up under the collar again.

"Just ignore them." Penny muttered, leaning past her to offer Lorrain a tissue. "He's just showing off in front of his friends. You know what boys are like."

She knew it was ridiculous to get this annoyed, she'd had her fair share of teasing in her younger years and it hadn't bothered her much at all. She was also well aware that, with the exception of Malfoy, she had an IQ twice the rest of theirs put together and yet she couldn't work out why that particular boy's remarks could get to her so easily.

"Alright, alright. Come on sixth years, settle down." Professor Longbottom appeared in the greenhouse doorway, pulling on a pair of thick gardening gloves and giving the Slytherin boys a pointed look. "Right, good to see some of you have already made a start on today's project." He smiled in Rose's direction. Neville Longbottom was definetly one of those professor's who liked to reminisce to her about those grand old days at school with the Golden Trio and, in return, chose to selectively ignore a large proportion of her own misdemeanours.

"Ah Albus!" Professor Longbottom beamed as the youngest Potter boy came swinging round the door and sprinting to a halt beside Rose, his tie undone and hair blatantly uncombed. "So glad to see you could join us this morning."

"It's always a pleasure sir." Albus grinned cheekily as the rest of the class chuckled quietly. Longbottom quirked an eyebrow but smiled and continued. Albus leant forward, whispering to the two girls. "What did I miss?"

"Nothing much." Penny muttered, prodding her own Bubotuber with a trowel. "Rose has decided she hates Malfoy and it looks like something's happened to Oliver Flint's face." The three of them glanced over and immediately had to resist the urge to take a startled step back as Flint gazed adoringly back at them, or rather at Penny, with an expression that resembled someone in excruciating pain.

"Bloody hell..." Muttered Albus, "And why do you hate Malfoy all of a sudden?"

"I don't _hate_ him," Rose scowled at Penny, "I'm just going through a temporary intense disliking that's all."

Albus laughed and shook his head. "Ah he's alright is Scorpius. Hell of a quidditch player. I admit his ego can be a bit-"

"Overly inflated?"

"Something like that." He grinned. "Don't suppose either of you brought me some breakfast by any chance? I'm ruddy starving."

Without a word, Rose took an apple from her satchel and held it out in front of him. "And hey, maybe we'll start setting our alarm clock in time to make breakfast tomorrow?"

He grinned and knocked it into the air with his elbow, catching it smoothly in his other hand. "Don't count on it cuz."

The rest of the day past with very little excitement, class followed by class followed by lunch followed by class. Positively thrilling. And so, as on many dull evenings, Rose found herself resorting to the library for entertainment. Settling herself down in her usual spot, a small desk hidden from the deserted main work area by a particularly dusty bookshelf, she set to work on the days assignments. Potions took all of ten minutes, followed by a good half hours work on the properties of Transfiguration Talismans, in fact it wasn't until she was halfway through the translation of a rather tricky passage of runes that she heard the voices.

Quill freezing mid sentence, she listened as the drawling tones of Scorpius Malfoy floated nearer and nearer to her secluded corner. The sound of two chairs being scraped back across the hardwood flooring and the rough turning of old pages came from the other side of the bookcase on her right followed by two dull thuds as Malfoy put his feet up on the desk.

"I'm not worrying about it too much though." Scorpius clearly wasn't aware of the silence in the library policy. "Balcroft took the test last week and said it was fine. I mean if that idiot managed it then we'll be sorted."

Somebody snorted with laughter beside him. "Yeah but you're not sitting next to Finnigan are you?" Clearly Flint. "It's hard to pay attention to anything much with her wearing those skirts of hers."

"Merlin you are pathetic sometimes Ollie. That girl's got you under the thumb and she doesn't even know it." He paused to yawn. "I mean she's pretty and all but nothing special. Although..." He added with a chuckle. "She's a damn sight better than that friend of hers."

Rose's quill snapped between her fingers.

"Weasley you mean? Oh come on, she's alright-"

"Well sure if you like your women as figureless as a lamp-post."

She could feel the heat from her face burning up the air around her. How-how dare he?! She was a late developer that was all!

"Look," Oliver chuckled, "She doesn't look like she did the other night _all_ the time you know? She'd just been trekking through the forest and well, I may have accidentally tripped her up a few times."

Rose suddenly felt a wave of endearment for Oliver Flint.

"It doesn't matter what the frame's like Flint, if the portrait is poorly painted, there's not much else to be said."

That was it, she'd heard quite enough. She didn't care that she should be a bigger person, that she shouldn't listen to what low-life morons like Malfoy said about her behind closed doors, that he was probably just trying to seem the big man in front of his friends. She had never been so insulted in all her life. And more importantly, although she would never admit it, she had never been more _upset_ in all her life.

Snatching up her books and papers with furiously shaking hands, she bolted up from her chair, knocking it over backwards as she did, before storming round the corner past the two Slytherins who, still deep in conversation, barely had time to register who she was before she had slammed the library door shut behind her and raced for the Gryffindor tower.

Today had been an awful day.


	3. C is for Conceited

**The Malfoy Alphabet**

C is for Conceited

It was barely even morning. The sun was resisting against the sky, clinging to the top of the hills in a desperate attempt to keep from rising. The faint light through the bedroom window was a dusky lilac, light enough to see but dark enough to shadow all imperfections as Rose Weasley assessed herself with a critical eye in the gleaming, full length mirror by the wardrobes.

There was a quiet shuffling behind her. "Rosie...?" Penny's voice was muffled and strained. "What are you doing? It's not even five..."

"Can't sleep. Don't worry about it." She muttered, eyes never leaving her reflection. With a sigh and a dull thump, Penny flopped back down on the pillow. Rose listened as her breathing slowed and deepened before sighing herself, her shoulders slumping as she leant forward, one hand supporting her against the mirror frame.

She glanced up into her own frustrated amber eyes, pupils black in the poor light. She was angry at herself for this, for letting the stupid prat get to her. This was exactly why she hated him and all his thick-headed friends so much; their ability to demean girls, make them feel insecure about the tiniest little things without so much as a thought. Of course it had never happened to her before, she had never allowed it to, until now.

She sighed in annoyance and stood up straight, turning to her side and pulling her pyjama top tight around her waist. _'Figureless as a lamp-post' _indeed, she thought angrily, there were curves there, quite nice ones too even if she did say so herself. Her choice to wear a school jumper two sizes too big was an act of defiance! Or rather her Father had _accidentally_ ordered the wrong size which _coincidentally_ disguised all notion of blossoming womanhood.  
She grimaced fondly and shook her head before sloping into the bathroom and turning on the hot water.

She took in her face again in the small mirror above the sink as she waited for the shower to heat up. She really wasn't _so_ bad was she? Her skin was practically flawless from years of refusing the temptation of make-up, she knew _how_ to use it of course just could never be bothered to find the time in the mornings. It was the same story for all the curlers and rollers and Merlin only knew what some of the things that Penny left strewn across the bathroom were for.

Although of course today..., she thought carefully, a smirk of her own twitching at the corner of her lips, she was up before five. Surely that left plenty of time for a little extra touch-up?  
With a wry smile she wrenched off her pyjamas and hopped into the shower.

Scorpius Malfoy strolled into the Great Hall that morning with a well-practiced grin of his own. There was a slight nagging at his conscience over that scene in the library last night with the Weasley girl, I mean he wasn't completely heartless after all. But then, he consoled himself, he hadn't said anything strictly untrue and when had honesty become a crime?

He walked casually, Flint and fellow Slytherin Simon Danforth by his side, as his arm hung loosely around the shoulders of Daniella Clearwater who seemed content to giggle and flutter her eyelashes at appropriate moments. Sending her tottering back off to the Ravenclaw table with a nod and a wink, he caught a well aimed apple from Flint and sat down with the other sixth year Slytherins already tucking into their breakfast. Laughing, he ruffled Flint's hair to much loud swearing as Florie Harper flashed him a smile and attempted to straighten his tie. Today was going to be a good day.

Suddenly, Flint stopped mid-swear. Scorpius glanced round to find him staring, slack-jawed towards the doors. Quirking an eyebrow, Malfoy followed his friends gaze and froze. Rose Weasley had just arrived for breakfast, her satchel still swinging at her side and a cluster of books in her arm and yet she was...different. Batting away Florie's fussing hands he straightened in his seat as he watched her walk smoothly down the other side of the hall, a cheeky smile on her face told him she knew people were watching. He frowned.  
He couldn't put his finger on it, what was it about her that had changed? Her hair was still curling at random, but she had pinned it in a way that sent it spiralling down her back rather than firing out at all angles. Her eyes were still too large for her face but now there were long, thick rims of dark lashes that swept over them and made them softer somehow. Her cheeks had a healthy tint of light pink and the dark rims under her eyes from late night studying seemed to have vanished without trace.  
And her uniform...he would swear it was the same and yet...  
It seemed her lamp-post days were a thing of the past.

He watched her for another second as she sat down by Potter, flicking her hair casually over her shoulder. He shook his head with a grin and turned back to his breakfast, giving Flint a subtle slap round the back of his head when he hadn't stopped gawping five minutes later.

"You err, done something with your hair?" Albus, oblivious as usual, frowned at her as he drenched his pancakes in syrup.

"New shampoo." She muttered airily, pulling out her Divination essay for a re-read and a spell check as she poured herself a bowl of cereal. She paused, Albus chatting away beside her about some hilarious incident from last nights quidditch practice, and glanced over her parchment at the Slytherin table just as Scorpius looked up from his paper. Her eyes found his and they locked for all of a second. She glared vehemently and he had the nerve to seem surprised.

"Rose?" And then the moment was gone.

"Hmm?" She turned to Albus, her glare becoming a frown.

"You going to eat that?" He glanced eagerly at the Danish swirl by her elbow.  
She rolled her eyes and laughed, pushing it towards him and relaxing into the morning chatter. She was going to have a very good day.

It was two hours later, as she was busy scrambling down a final note whilst the rest of her classmates heaved for the door at the end of History of Magic, that Rose found herself glaring into those very same light blue eyes up close.  
Scorpius, who had carefully waited for the rest of the class to make their exit, walked slowly to the front of the room, slipping into the seat next to her without a word.  
Rose started as she glanced up to find him all of half a foot from her side, his expression patient with an air of smugness about it.

"What do you want?" She spluttered, caught well and truly off guard.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "Well I was going to say I owed you an apology..."

She pursed her lips and began shoving her text books back into her back. "Well don't strain yourself on my account will you Malfoy?"

He watched her for a second before getting to his feet with a chuckle. "Suit yourself."

She continued gathering up her belongings roughly, fighting the angry twitch her left eye had just developed. "You know you can't just go around saying the things you do!" She spun around suddenly, her chest heaving, and glared at his back as he stopped by the door.

He turned slowly to face her and smirked. "Oh I don't know about that. It seems to have done you the world of good." Rose let an enraged growl escape from between her gritted teeth and turned back to her books. "I'm actually quite flattered you took my words to heart Weasley. Although it really is rude to go around listening in to other people's conversations-"

"Listening in?! I was not- _you_ just- I mean how was I supposed to-?!" She gave up, raging again, swinging her book bag over her shoulder and flouncing past him to wrench open the classroom door. She shot him a particularly nasty look as she stormed out into the corridor to which his grin merely widened.

"And you know, you really should work on that temper of yours Weasley. Very unbecoming of a young lady." She gave him the finger over her shoulder as he howled back in laughter.  
That was it. She hated him, despised him, wanted him dead in the most painful way possible. Scorpius Malfoy was a prick. Simple as ABC.  
And the day had started off so well...


	4. D is for Deceitful

**The Malfoy Alphabet**

D is for Deceitful

Rose crashed down into a vacant arm chair in the Gryffindor common room, kicking out at the coffee table in front of her and sending the pieces of James and Albus' game of wizard's chess scattering across the board.

James cocked an eyebrow at his raging cousin. "What's ruffled your feathers Weasel?"  
Rose simply scowled at him and started tearing at the pins in her hair, letting her usual messy brown ringlets tumble from place. She was furious, not at Malfoy (although she was pretty darn pissed at him as well), but at herself. She had let him and his scathing words get under her skin and then embarrassed herself further by proving just how much she really cared by dolling herself up like this. She tugged off the close fitting jumper she'd shrunken that morning only to leave herself in an even more figure-hugging shirt.  
She quickly replaced the jumper and sat in a sulk.

She'd let him win, she'd shown him she was just another air-head desperate for his approval. Except that was the funny thing- she really wasn't after anything at all from that pig-headed git. She didn't want him to look at her or think about her, in fact until two days ago, the name Scorpius Malfoy had meant nothing to her at all except as 'that blonde prat from Slytherin.'

"This about Scorpius again?" Albus muttered, picking up his Queen from where she'd fallen onto the rug.

"The Malfoy kid?" James, a year older than Rose and his brother, looked at her oddly. "I wouldn't have thought you even knew who he was, never mind care this much."

"Of course I know who he is!" She spat, folding her arms defiantly. "We're in every bloody class together. And I _don't_ care!"

"Oh no, evidently not." James glanced at Albus with a grin.  
Rose however, was too busy raging at herself to notice their amusement. She _did_ care, she cared very much in fact that she was sat here, head filled with images of blonde haired boys falling from the castle walls and impaling themselves on weather-vanes, whilst he had probably completely forgotten who she even was.  
Not that she _cared_ if he was thinking about her of course.

At that moment, Penny came clambering through the portrait hole carrying a clump of daffodils, roots and dirt still hanging from the stalks.  
"Do you know anything about these Rosie?" She studied the name card inquisitively. "I found them waiting for me with the Fat Lady..."

"Although I am partial to sending other girls flowers Pen, I can't claim that lovely bunch to my name. Maybe you've got yourself a secret admirer?" She glanced across at James inquisitively who shrugged and shook his head. He seemingly, had nothing to do with them.

Penny, engrossed in her surprise gift, bit her lip and frowned. "I always find mystery men a little bit creepy..."

Rose, who was just now remembering seeing Oliver Flint sneak off in the direction of the greenhouses after lunch, nodded in agreement. "Very creepy indeed."

"Right," James, who had just checkmated his little brother, stood up and pulled on his jumper. "I'm off to meet Lorcan for some extra practice before Saturday. You fancy it Albus?"

Albus, the team's keeper, who had been fretting about this weekends match against Ravenclaw- the starting game of the season, nodded eagerly.

Penny and Rose exchanged looks. "Will err, Lysander be there as well?" Rose asked, inspecting her nails nonchalantly.  
Lorcan and Lysander were Rose's godmother, Luna Scamander's twin sons. Lorcan was one of James' best friends in Gryffindor and his brother Lysander was the captain of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and the one and only reason Rose ever bothered watching the school games.

James arched an eyebrow. "Probably. Those two are practically joined at the hip when it comes to Quidditch. I swear if they weren't in separate houses I'd think they were conjoined."

Penny perched casually on the arm of Rose's chair. "Don't suppose you'd fancy an audience would you James?" She fixed him with one of her most blissful smiles.  
James grinned, ignoring Albus who was frantically mouthing the word _'No_' beside him.

"The more the merrier Finnigan. In fact if you play your cards right, I might even give you a ride on my broom."

Penny giggled, Albus rolled his eyes and Rose gave him a good hard kick in the shins.

* * *

"Ten points to Team Potter!" Rose shouted with a grin as James swerved round, swooping down to high five her as he flew past. Albus yelled out, punching the air as he flipped upside down by the goal posts.

"Daft show offs." Penny laughed, watching James loop-de-looping around Lorcan who was swearing profusely. The game had taken a turn for the ridiculous, the Scamander twins unable to get a single quaffle past Albus who, it seemed, had been fretting completely unnecessarily about his own surprisingly impressive keeping abilities. The two girls had taken to dancing around the stands in both celebration and an effort to keep warm as breezy afternoon had turned into chilly evening.

"Alright, alright!" Lysander shook his head, tugging off his jumper and rolling up his shirt sleeves. "Best out of three?"

James, who had just started his fourth victory lap, howled with laughter. "Aw, is the Hufflepuff Hero getting a little worried over there?"

Lysander shook his head and grinned. "Cheeky git. Alright, Lorcan- go left!"  
The girls stopped jiggling about and watched with a sigh as the twins set off, perfectly synchronised, down either side of the stadium.

"He's so..._fast_." Rose breathed with a slightly lopsided smile, watching Lysander sweep his messy copper hair from his eyes as he flew past. "And so...so _sensitive_."

Penny shot her a side-ways glance and chuckled. Rose might be the smartest witch she knew but even she had the tendency to get a little befuddled sometimes. Although, when Penny followed her gaze to watch the Hufflepuff captain swoop and swerve, his shirt buffeted by the wind against his chest and a dazzling smile on his face, she could easily see what caused Rose to lose her senses.

"Oi, referees!" Lorcan yelled, causing both girls to jump upright, startled. "That's ten points to yours truly, if you don't mind!"

Penny whooped and jumped up onto the benches, singing out a cheer for the self-named 'Team Terrific Twin.' Rose, still staring out onto the pitch dreamily, almost collapsed when Lysander flashed one of his knee-knocking smiles in her direction.

"Hey Potter! How about we get the girls involved?" Lysander leant back on his broom and grinned.

"Yeah," Lorcan laughed, spinning the quaffle on one finger. "Show them how _real_ _men _play the game!"

"You'd best sit out then hey Lorc?" James smirked, swerving past him so quickly that he caught the end of his broom sending him spinning off in the opposite direction. "What do you say you two?" He pulled up beside them. Penny nodded eagerly.

"We call Finnigan!" Albus shouted desperately from the goal posts, well aware of his cousin's total lack of flying skills and general balance whilst airborne.

Rose glared. "Oh thanks very much. You just wait till Auntie Ginny hears how much you value family loyalty!"

Lysander laughed, flying to a stop next to James. "Don't worry Rosie, I've an eye for playing potential and I reckon you might be just what 'Team Terrific Twin' needs."

Penny, who until this moment had been watching her friend blush and gush without a word, stepped forward with a full pout in place. "Oh, but what a shame. Neither me or Rose have brooms of our own..." She tipped her head to one side thoughtfully. "What shall we do about _that_?"

Rose clocked on a little too late.

"Well, we could always share-" Lysander shrugged.

"Great idea!" Penny beamed. "I'll go with James and you can go with Xander, Rosie!"

Rose gasped in silent horror. "No! You-!" She started, turning to death-glare Penny but before she could continue, she was being hurriedly pushed towards the end of the stands.

"Come on Rosie." She turned to find Lysander smiling at her, hand outstretched and she physically wilted. Penny subtly put an arm around her shoulders to stop her tumbling from the bleachers. "It's just a little game."

She smiled weakly and took his hand, stepping gingerly up onto the wooden railing and letting him swing her round onto the broom. It was a snug fit and she could feel the heat of him pressed up against her back. It took all her will power to remain conscious.  
Penny hopped up beside James easily, the pair of them laughing as they headed back out across the pitch.

"You seem tense." Rose flinched at the sound of Lysander's voice so close to her ear, glancing over her shoulder with a smile. She could feel the colour rising to her cheeks already.  
"Let me guess, fear of flying?"

She laughed nervously. "Something like that." Merlin she was being so pathetic!

"Maybe we ought to get you some lessons." He chuckled and held her steady with a gentle arm around her waist as she wobbled uncertainly. "_I _could always teach you if you liked?"

Rose blinked and faltered. Lysander was watching her with a grin tugging at the edges of his lips. She brushed her hair back from her face and smiled tentatively. "Well, I suppose-"

"Now what do we have here then?!" Rose stopped mid-sentence at the interruption, turning round as fast as she dared so high from the ground. Down on the pitch, three figures were making their way to the centre, robes nipping at their heels and brooms in hand. The broadest and shortest of the three was two steps ahead and was leering up into the air as she shouted. "A little late-evening quidditch?"

Lysander leant in towards Rose. "Goyle." He whispered, before shuddering dramatically and grinning.

"Practice makes perfect Tulip." Lorcan landed effortlessly in front of the oncoming trio. Tulip seemed an awfully inappropriate name for the young Miss Goyle, who was as far from a delicate little flower as you could possibly imagine with her wide, square shoulders and concrete build. But her Mother, Pansy, had insisted nature names were a family tradition. From her view from above, Rose would have thought that 'tree stump' might have been more accurate.

"You seem to have had the same idea." Lorcan added with a nod to her two companions, one of whom, Rose noticed with a stab of annoyance, was Malfoy.

"Got to make sure my Chasers aren't too rusty before the new season." Tulip squinted skyward. "Flying tandem I see. Not a new tactic I hope?"

Lorcan chuckled. "Nah, just having some fun." He whistled at his brother and the others to touchdown. "We were about to have a game if you'd fancy joining-"

"Training with the enemy?" Scorpius, who until now had remained unusually silent, scoffed and folded his arms. "You can't be serious Scamander?"

"Relax Malfoy." Lysander, who had just carefully landed himself and Rose further down the pitch, grinned as he strolled towards the little gathering. "It's just a bit of friendly fun. Besides, I won't be watching your moves, I'll have enough to worry about just keeping this one from the brink of death."  
He smirked playfully and nudged Rose, who had just appeared beside him.

Scorpius quirked an eyebrow, evidently surprised. "Weasley? What are you doing here?"

Lysander glanced between the two of them, frowning at the look of contempt that had suddenly graced Rose's features. "You two know each other well?"

"Not exactly." She muttered dryly. "Are we still playing or not?"

"Err sure." Lysander nodded, more than a little confused at her sudden change of heart. "I guess we'd better get you back on that broom then."

Malfoy watched the two of them walk off together, Lysander leading Rose toward his broom with a hand on the small of her back. It was funny, he thought, that only two days ago, he had very little idea who Rose Weasley even was. She was the girl that always knew the answer, the girl who was friends with Flint's latest obsession, one of those inbred Gryffindors- he swore they were all related these days. But that was it. He hadn't realised that that same smart girl he'd sat behind in Charms all year was quite so bad tempered all the time, nor did he realise anyone could glare so much without their face cracking. And now he was realising, as he watched her strutting across the pitch with her shoulders back all high and mighty, that her hair wasn't really just a dull brown but a blend of copper and bronze coloured strands that shone when caught by the light and that she really wasn't quite as figureless afterall...

"Malfoy? Oi, Scorpius?"

Malfoy blinked and turned away. "What?" He cleared his throat.

Goyle grimaced at him in annoyance. "It's us three against them, first to ten goals. Potter and Scamander are flying tandem as a disadvantage. Got it?" He nodded briskly. "Then get on your broom."

And so the game began.


	5. E is for Ego

(Author's note: Thanks to everyone for reviews so far. I'm having a lot of fun with this series and it's really encouraging to get such great feedback so thankyou!)

**The Malfoy Alphabet**

E is for Ego

Whilst the rest of the castle was getting ready for an early night, nine students found themselves eyeing up the competition across the Quidditch pitch.  
Tulip Goyle was already warming up, circling around the goal posts at one end of the field and shouting orders at her two teammates below.

Scorpius, who chose to selectively ignore her, looked across the field again where Lysander was just reaching around Rose to get a grip on the broom's steering. She glanced over and unwittingly caught his eye before turning away so sharply he was surprised she didn't sustain a neck injury. He smirked and shrugged off his robes then followed his captain into the air as James Potter signalled for kick-off.

The evening was turning darker and with the failing light came a damp chill that made the skin cold and almost clammy to the touch. Scorpius' shirt was sticking to his skin as he intercepted a quaffle throw from Albus to Lorcan and swept beneath the pair of them to aim for the goalposts. The quaffle sank neatly through the middle hoop and he steered round with a laugh, sailing past Rose and Lysander who had to grab her quickly as she fell forward. This, he thought, might actually be fun afterall.

Rose sat upright with a huff, sweeping her dark curls back from where they'd fallen over her face and glaring after Scorpius as he circled the pitch.  
"Sodding show-off." She huffed.

Behind her, Lysander laughed. "We could always teach him a lesson if you'd like?"

Rose quirked an eyebrow and glanced over her shoulder. "I think I'd like that very much. Oh but, can we do that without moving?"

He grinned. "You just hold on tight Weasley."

"Wait, can I close my eyes?!" She shrieked as Lysander whipped the broom around and headed after Scorpius at lightning speed.

"Sure but then you'll miss the look on his face when we knock him off his broom!"

It was a tough one, but Rose had to admit that even the intense nausea of motion sickness was worth _that_ sight. Scorpius was currently hot on the trail of Penny and James who were headed towards Goyle, Penny sat side-saddle on the front with the quaffle on her lap and both of them so involved in each other it was amazing they were even flying in the right direction. Lorcan was involved in a tussle with Bancroft, Goyle's second henchman and Albus so busy shouting _'Go for the nose!'_ at him, that neither saw Malfoy suddenly shoot skyward and lift the quaffle right from Finnigan's fingers. It took her a good thirty seconds to actually notice and by then it was too late with Malfoy already halfway down the pitch.

Scorpius glanced behind him with a grin, waving at James with the quaffle held high in his hand. Unfortunately for him, he was far too busy being smug to notice Lysander heading straight at him from the right or even hear Rose's screams of protest until he had to make an emergency veer left, the quaffle lost in mid-air.

"Nice catch Rosie!"  
Rose peeked out from her dishevelled hair to find herself holding the quaffle with shaking hands.

"Huh, look at that." She laughed uncertainly, still fighting the urge to vomit. "I can play quidditch."

Scorpius picked wood chippings from his hair as he clambered up from the wreckage of a bench he'd taken down with him as he'd fallen. He wrenched up his broom and cursed, several of the bristles were spiking out at odd angles. With a frustrated growl he looked out onto the field, honing in on Lysander as he took the quaffle and sent it sailing past Goyle towards the posts.  
With a determined grunt, he swung himself onto his broom and took off.

Rose whooped in celebration as Xander sunk the third goal neatly through the left hoop. The more she laughed, the more she found herself relaxing into the game, even daring to shift herself round to sit side-saddle on the broom after she'd noticed how it made Penny's figure seem far more less macho than her own. An added plus point of her new position was the much better view it gave her of her flying companion who, she was delighted to observe, kept stealing glances at her when he thought she wasn't looking. And to top that all off, they'd just sent Malfoy smirking and winking his way right smack into the middle of a bench.  
She never knew quidditch could be so fun.

"See, I told you you'd be a natural." Lysander murmured in her ear as they cruised through the air, Rose's hair dancing over her shoulders in the wind.

She grinned and looked at him from beneath thick eyelashes. "I think I must have just got lucky with my team-mates..." She trailed off; something out on the field had caught her eye. Squinting out into the newly descended mist, Rose stared as something black, white and platinum blonde came hurtling towards her.

Lysander followed her gaze and his eyes widened. "Oh shit-!"  
And just like that, Lysander was gone. He had had just enough time to raise his arms in front of his face before impact when he was head-butted clean off of his broom. Luckily, the speed of his attacker had sent him crashing into the stands and not plummeting to his death but the matter of real concern of course, was that now Rose was flying solo.

The broom remained oddly stationary for a moment, hovering in mid-air as Rose sat there in mild shock but soon enough, having no one to control it, it started to jerk. Slowly at first, it picked up pace until Rose was reminded of the time she'd once tried to ride the 'bucking broncho' her Grandfather had bought at a muggle car boot sale.

Albus was the first to notice his cousin's distress. "Hold on Rosie!"  
He turned his broom towards her but it was too late. The broom had given up shaking her about and had instead chosen to play dead so that it was now tumbling, and Rose with it, frighteningly fast towards the ground.

"Somebody catch her!" Penny's shriek was barely audible above Rose's screams of peril.

Everything was a blur as she turned over and over, her hair slapping herself in the face with every stomach lurching twist as she reached out, trying to grab hold of something, _anything,_ that would stop her colliding with the pitch any second but the air was empty.  
Suddenly she felt a fist curl around her outstretched wrist and with a forceful pull and to the sound of a sickening crack, she felt herself flung upwards. She screamed even louder as she started sailing higher, her legs flailing wildly, until another pull around her waist found her landing roughly and uncomfortably on yet another broom.

It was another few seconds before she remembered how to breathe and at least a minute till she stopped screaming. Taking in deep gulps of air she turned to her rescuer...  
...and started screaming all over again.

"_You?!_" She shrieked, wide eyed. "Oh please not _you_!"

"I just saved your life you moron!" Scorpius narrowed his eyes in frustration, trying not to crash himself whilst restraining Rose who was trying to fight him off several feet above ground. "Talk about ungrateful."

"Let me down!" She fumed, slapping away his hands as he attempted to keep her steady. "Let me down NOW!"

Malfoy gritted his teeth and glared at her. "Fine."  
Without so much as a hesitation, he jerked to one side, flipping his broom around in full circle. Luckily, he'd been holding on tight. Rose however, had not been holding on at all.

She had just enough time to glance up in shock and find Malfoy smirking down at her before her head thudded against something cold and hard and her vision collapsed in on itself.

* * *

Rose gasped in a desperate breath and winced. Her throat was dry, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and there was an almighty throb in both her head and her wrist. She blinked quickly, her pupils constricting as light flooded her vision- she wasn't in her room.

Sitting upright slowly, she glanced down to find her left arm in a sling. She grimaced and put a hand to her forehead only to discover there were bandages there too. Her memory was scratchy, she'd been flying...why would she go flying? She hated flying...

"You're alive then?"  
She started, turning towards the voice too fast and wincing at the result.  
"I was beginning to wonder."

In a bed next to her, bandages of his own and a nasty looking cut above his eye, lay Scorpius Malfoy. He wasn't looking at her, just gazing up at the ceiling with his hands behind his head.

"What time is it?" Rose muttered, her voice coming out as a hoarse whisper. Now that she looked around it wasn't that light at all, a dim orange glow emanated around the room, which she now realised was the hospital wing, cast by small conical lamps situated at intervals along the walls.

"Pomfrey left at midnight. That was about an hour ago..." He glanced sideways at her. She moved stiffly and seemed confused.

"You...you were there." She frowned, deep in thought. "You were there when I fell."  
She lay her sore head back down on the pillow. So she'd been flying and Malfoy had been there. Merlin, she must have been having a_ really_ fun time.

She looked over at him again. He was smirking. Smirking...._smirking_...  
She gasped and jumped off the bed as fast as her sling would allow.

"You pushed me!" She pointed angrily at him with her good hand, her eyes growing more and more furious as she remembered each little detail of the evening.

He scoffed. "I didn't _push_ you Weasley-"

"Dropped me then!"

"Well you told me to."

"I meant land and let me go, thickhead! I'm not suicidal!" She raged, pacing back and forth between the two beds.

Scorpius sat up and swung himself round to face her. "I wasn't to know was I? I mean you are very angry a lot of the time, it's very misleading."

And now he was joking! Rose wanted to lunge at him, strangle him, set fire to his bandages, anything at all to wipe that smug little grin from his face.

"I could've been killed!"

He rolled his eyes. "Now you're being overdramatic."  
She growled angrily, grabbing her pillow and throwing it at him with force.  
"Oi, injured man here! You don't attack people in a hospital Weasley, that's an unwritten rule!"

"Eugh! You are the most insensitive little- wait...why _are_ you here? What happened to you?" She glared at him, hand on hip.

He sighed in annoyance, tossing the pillow to the side and lying back on the bed. "You and your boyfriend seem to have over-reactions in common. He seemed to think I was out to get you and came charging into me. I owe him three cracked ribs, the stupid git."

"Boyfriend?" Rose shook her head in confusion. "What are you talking about Malfoy?"

He waved his hand casually. "That twin...Lysander Scamander or whoever. Nancy boy name if you ask me. Is he aware it rhymes?"

Rose ignored him, momentarily lost on a separate chain of thought. So Lysander had gone after Scorpius; now that was a silver lining if ever she'd seen one.  
Glancing back at Malfoy, now drawling on about the drawbacks of Hufflepuffs, Rose huffed once again before turning on her heel and marching down the deserted room towards Madame Pomfrey's office.

"I mean honestly, even the name has the word 'puff' in it- Oi! What are you doing?" Scorpius sat up again, watching as Rose started hammering on the little office door.

"If you think I'm staying here listening to you all night, you've got another thing coming." She shouted back, banging her fist against the door with mad abandon.

He cocked an eyebrow. "I've already told you, she left over an hour ago."

Rose rolled her eyes, stomping over to the main doors instead and tugging on the large brass handles. They didn't budge. She pulled again, harder this time.  
"It's locked!" She moaned in frustration, pressing her head up against the door as if listening for signs of life.  
"You know this is a fire hazard!" She shouted through, "Not a single emergency exit!"

"Merlin, you really are irritating." Malfoy folded his arms.

She shot him a look. "I deeply dislike you." She marched back to her bed and grabbed the spare pillow before settling down on a spare mattress further down the hall. "Really, it keeps me up at night."

Scorpius watched her in bemusement. "So...what you're saying is you think about me when you're in bed?" He grinned.

"Yes. I mean no, _no_!" She glared and turned on her side so her back was to him. "Now please stop talking to me."

"What, ever? That's a little extreme don't you think-"

She grabbed her pillow and pushed it down over her ears, though she could still hear his muffled laughter, and squeezed her eyes shut tight, desperately trying to fill her head with images of Lysander pummelling him through a goal hoop.

It was going to be a long night.


	6. F is for Full Of It

**The Malfoy Alphabet**

F is for Full Of It 

Rose stood in the dark quidditch broomshed, the air musty with the smell of old wood and dirt. The shed was cold and she shivered as her breath swirled like dancing smoke before her. She was waiting, silently and patiently, although for what she couldn't quite seem to remember.

She could already tell she was dreaming for two reasons; the first, why would she ever need to be in the old quidditch broomshed? And secondly, she only seemed able to make things out in the periphery of her vision. It was as if everything faded into a dull grey when she tried to focus directly at it. Imagination never did seem to be too big on the little details.

The door to the shed creaked open with tantalizing slowness and she was gradually immersed in a bright light that made her squint and raise her arm to cover her face. She noticed idly that her sling was now nowhere to be seen.  
A figure stepped into the doorway, standing in the midst of the sun's glare so that they were simply a solid mass of shadow. The door swung shut and Rose smiled as Lysander's grin suddenly came into view. He walked the short distance towards her and reached up to touch her cheek.

"I waited," she smiled up at him, her voice sounding softer and more musical than usual.

He nodded and slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her flush against him as she gently slid her own arms around his neck. They seemed to fit together so neatly, so comfortably.  
He tilted his head, his lips coasting over the smooth skin of her cheek before hesitating, a fraction of a centimetre from her own slightly parted and nervously anticipating mouth. She lifted herself onto her toes and their lips met. Calmly at first, their kiss built up a slow but needy urgency until his hands were clawing down the back of her shirt and hers were buried within and pulling at his hair.  
All that lovely, messy, soft, blonde hair.

* * *

She bolted upright with a gasp, moving so quickly that her arm fell from her sling and her wrist thudded painfully against the mattress. She winced and cradled it carefully, her mind still half in shock from its night-time wandering. _Blonde_ hair...

As if answering her own unspoken question, she glanced over towards Scorpius' bed, only to find it hidden from view by a wall of curtained dividers. She shuddered and shook her head angrily at her own notions; after all she knew tons of boys with blonde hair and each of them was far more likely to have made their way into her dreams than _he_ ever would.

A sudden flash back brought on a wave of mild nausea and she clambered, one-armed, out of bed and across the room to the water-fountain with her bedside glass. She could hear Madame Pomfrey humming to herself in her office which meant it must be at least eight thirty, hopefully she would start rounds soon and Rose could get out of there and back to classes. There was nothing she hated more than catch-up assignments.

Heading back to her bed, Rose paused by the curtains around Scorpius' bed. If she wasn't very much mistaken, she'd just heard giggling coming from the other side and she doubted very much that Scorpius Malfoy was the type of man who ever _giggled _at anything. She leaned cautiously towards the sound and just as she did, the curtains parted and a rather flustered looking Florie Harper stumbled out in front of her.  
Rose's eyes widened as she watched Florie strut off towards the doors, pinning her hair back up and attempting to flatten out her skirt.

"Close your mouth Weasley, you might just deflate."  
She turned round, her jaw snapping shut into a grimace. She stared up at Scorpius who was casually re-buttoning his shirt and leaning back against the now open dividers.

"This is a hospital Malfoy!" Rose hissed, glaring at him incredulously. "You couldn't go one night-?"

"Hey, it was a surprise visit. She heard about my terrible injuries and came to see if there was anything she could do to help," he smirked and smoothed back his hair.

Rose rolled her eyes, marching over to her bed and grabbing her jumper and school robes. "Oh I bet she was very helpful indeed."

He grinned and shrugged, watching her as she stomped around. "Well they do say that's the best sort of medicine..."

"The expression is _laughter_, Malfoy," she muttered, shooting a look as she stalked past towards Madame Pomfrey's office, banging heavily on the door.

"Is it really? Well then, a scowl like that could be fatal." Scorpius grinned at her cheekily as she sent him one of her filthiest looks, before hammering on the door again with re-energised vigour.

"Alright, alright," Madame Pomfrey appeared in the little office window, faffing with her pinafore ties before opening the door and pushing her spectacles up onto the bridge of her nose. "Now what could possibly be so urgent that I find you attempting to break down my door Miss Weasley?"

Rose glared down the hall again as Malfoy laughed and disappeared behind the curtains.

"Sorry Madame Pomfrey, but I really would like to get to my classes today. My wrist's much better and-"

"Yes, yes alright." Pomfrey reached forward and lifted Rose's arm for inspection. Rose hid her wince by glancing quickly at the floor. "Very well, you can go," she glanced at her watch, "you should just about make your first class on time."  
She glanced over at the wall of dividers. "And what about you Mr Malfoy?" she called. "Do you also feel compelled to attend your lessons today?"

"Oh, I think I'll need at least the morning to fully recover." A rather cheerful voice shouted back.

"Yes, I thought you might." Pomfrey sighed in exasperation and shook her head, smiling at Rose before turning back into her office.

Rose tugged on her jumper carefully and re-set her sling, pulling open the large hospital wing doors and stepping out into the corridor. She checked her own watch, she had four minutes to run up to the Gryffindor tower and get her books and then make it over to Divination.  
She picked up pace and sped round a corner, still staring at her watch, only to come crashing into something heading the other way. She stumbled sideways, making a noise resembling a strangled parrot, as she fell towards a threatening flight of stairs until a strong arm caught her around her waist and pulled her back from the brink.

"Missing the hospital wing already?" Rose looked up into Lysander's smile with wide eyes. She wasn't entirely sure what had just happened but she was _very_ aware that he hadn't let go of her waist yet. Not that she was complaining. "I was just on my way to see you actually."

She laughed weakly, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "You must think I've got a death-wish or something."

"Well, you're not exactly the most graceful girl I've ever met," he chuckled, his own hair flopping charmingly over his eyes. "But lucky for you I have quick reflexes."

"I guess I'll just have to hope you're always around to save me then." Rose allowed herself a small smirk. She sounded ridiculous, even to herself, but it seemed to please Lysander whose eyes deepened in colour to a deep hazel as he took a tentative step closer.

"Blimey! Do you have any idea how many steps there are up here?" James had appeared at the bottom of the stairs, half bent at the waist and puffing away, red faced. "Two hundred and sixty four, that's how many! Two hundred and sixty four steps to the _hospital wing_! Sick people have to climb up those."

Rose and Lysander, who had jumped apart at the interruption, laughed awkwardly. Lysander cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair whilst Rose stared avidly out the nearest window, a deep pink blush surging to her cheeks.

James looked up at the pair of them and arched an eyebrow. "Those for me?"

"Oh err..." Lysander muttered, suddenly remembering what he'd been holding all this while. Rose glanced over to find a small bouquet of flowers in his right hand, slightly squashed from where she must have collided with them earlier.  
She smiled questioningly at him and he shrugged sheepishly.

"Anyway," Rose cut in loudly, eager to avoid any more of James' questions, "what are you doing up here? I thought hospitals gave you the creeps."

"They do," James sloped up the last few stairs towards them, "but then it's not every day my physically challenged cousin ends up in one is it?"

"Being bad at quidditch is _not_ a disability, James." Rose huffed. "But thankyou for missing your first class to come visit, that must have been a real sacrifice."  
She smiled wryly, James could be as transparent as air sometimes.

He grinned. "You know how much I love Runes. Anyway, now I've checked you're alive, Uncle Ron'll stop badgering me."

Rose frowned. "Dad? How does he-?"

"Hugo told him." James rolled his eyes. Rose groaned in annoyance. That little tell-tale of a brother had to be the world's biggest pest sometimes. "He threatened to tell my Mum about my motorbike if you died."

Rose arched an eyebrow incredulously, Lysander cracked up beside her. "Glad to see my family's wracked with worry then. Worth the price of a motorbike indeed." She shook her head and checked her watch. "Right, I'm late. Divination waits for no girl-"

"You can't go!" James cried, aghast. "How can I justify hiking all the way up here if you swan off to class?"

"You can go visit Scorpius if you like." Rose cocked an eyebrow. "Thanks for that by the way," she added with a smirk to Lysander.

He grinned proudly. "Thought you'd be pleased."

James sighed. "Oh, here we go. It wasn't his fault you know?"

"Not his fault?" Rose scoffed in amazement. "James, were you even on the same pitch? He dropped me in mid-air!"

"Well he wasn't to know how useless you were-"

"Merlin, anyone would think you were suddenly best mates the way you defend him!" Rose gawped. "What are you? Malfoy's knight in shining armour?"

James rolled his eyes. "Oh go polish Firenze's balls."

"I beg your pardon?!"

"I meant you're late for Divination you twit," he folded his arms. "Now run along, wouldn't want the family's little bookworm to miss out on any of her education would we?"

Rose glowered and, flicking her hair over her shoulder, she stomped down the stairs in indignation. "Bye Xander." She waved brusquely over her shoulder, following up with a chorus of _'James and Malfoy sitting in a tree...'_.

"Oh very mature!" James shouted after her as she vanished round a corner.

Lysander chuckled. "I bet Christmas is a riot for your family."

"You wouldn't believe it mate," he shook his head. "You wouldn't believe it."

* * *

"Late, Miss Weasley!" Professor Firenze, nodded in her direction as she hurried into her seat at the back of the class. She mouthed an apology and he looked away. He was steadily losing his fighting spirit in his old age.

"Well look at you!" Penny whispered as Rose hurriedly pulled her textbooks from her satchel. "Nice war wound," she nodded to her sling. "Did you see Malfoy?"

"Hard to miss," Rose muttered.

"Thoughtful of Lysander wasn't it?" Penny grinned cheekily, coaxing a smile from Rose as she thought back to the flowers.

"Miss Harper, although I'm sure your hair is of the utmost importance, perhaps you could pay attention for just a few minutes?" Professor Firenze shouted tiredly across the room.  
Rose frowned and followed his gaze to where Florie Harper sat, rolling her eyes and turning back to her reflection in the crystal ball on her table.

"Has she always been in our class?" Rose whispered, nodding her head in Harper's direction.

"Who, Florie?" Penny shrugged. "I think so. Not the brightest crayon in the box mind you. Nice hair though," she added thoughtfully.  
It was true; Florie Harper had very nice hair. It reminded Rose of liquid gold, the way it coiled effortlessly on her head and flowed down the back of her neck.

A sudden desire to grab Florie's pony-tail and tie the end to the ceiling fan made her flinch angrily in her seat.

Penny looked at her oddly. "What's gotten into you?"

Rose honestly had no idea but she hoped for Florie's sake, she got over it soon.


	7. G is for Grandeur, Delusions of

**The Malfoy Alphabet**

**G is for Grandeur (Delusions of)**

It was after five before Rose got a chance to slip quietly away towards the dormitories. Penny, good intentioned as she was, had utterly drained her with the constant fussing over her injuries and the re-re-_re_-telling of all the events after Rose's head had been formerly, and rather violently introduced to the quidditch pitch. It was lovely, of course, to be reminded of how Lysander had dramatically and furiously avenged her fall by sending Malfoy hurtling into the goal posts but after the twelfth recap in under half an hour even that had become a little tiresome.

Rose paused by the door to her room and smiled as she bent to pick up a pretty but rather dishevelled little bouquet of flowers; the same bouquet, Rose remembered fondly, that Lysander had been carrying on his way to visit her in the hospital wing that morning. With an uncharacteristically girly squeal, Rose flung open the door and spun across the floor to flop down across her dark crimson duvet.

Life was good. Very good in fact.  
With the Christmas holidays quickly approaching, her grades currently through the roof and one of the most eligible young men of the student body leaving flowers at her doorway, Rose found it difficult to find a reason to suppress the childish grin spreading across her face. Until, that is, she remembered Malfoy.

She sat upright with a scowl, tugging off the sling which was starting to scratch against her neck and cursing the boy that had forced her into wearing it. Every rose had its thorns, and Scorpius Malfoy was one very prickly thorn indeed. She had never particularly liked the boy but it had never really been an issue because she hadn't bothered to pay him any notice. Now it seemed he was everywhere and proving oddly difficult to avoid and so dislike was rapidly turning into poisonous hatred.

He was just such an insufferable git!

It puzzled her slightly that she found herself caring quite so much. Yes, he was infuriating, but then tonnes of people had the power to annoy her and yet none of them were causing her quite as much issue. Flint, for one, had many of the same nauseatingly smug traits of Scorpius himself but she couldn't see him becoming much of a problem unless his obsession with Penny led him to start watching through their shared dormitory window at night. Then she might have to say something.

No, there was something different about Malfoy, something that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

What the other girls of Hogwarts saw in him she'd never understand. All that nonsense about confident strides and knee-buckling smirks, I mean how could a smirk be knee-buckling? She'd always thought it made him look rather like a frog, the way he screwed up his face to one side and gloated. And as for his looks in general, well she couldn't argue he didn't have a _mildly_ pleasant facial arrangement...and his torso was rather nicely shaped..._and_ well toned...but the way that girls dropped like flies, many having a habit of tripping over the benches in the Great Hall because they simply 'couldn't tear their eyes off him,' Rose found more than a little exaggerative.

She flopped back onto her bed and frowned, suddenly feeling oddly restless and ill at ease with herself. She glanced at the flowers she'd placed on the bedside table. They too suddenly seemed less interesting. She found herself thinking, of all things, of Malfoy's tie and the way he always wore it loose, his shirt slightly parted at the top and just grazing his collar bone. Her fingers itched to grab it and play with it.  
Only the better to ring it tight and throttle him with, she reassured herself quickly.

At that moment, Penny burst in through the door making Rose bolt upright as if caught doing, or rather thinking about, something she shouldn't.

"Quick Rosie," she called, her hair falling messily across her face. She'd obviously just been running frantically to get here. "It's your family!"

Rose's eyes flew wide in surprise as she clambered hurriedly off the bed. "What's happened? What are they doing?"

"It's Lily," Penny gasped for breath, beckoning for Rose to follow her back out the room.  
"They caught her snogging Fergus Sloper in the courtyard and now all Hell's broken loose!"

Rose groaned inwardly as she fell into step beside Penny, both girls taking the stairs to the common room two at a time in their hurry. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened and with Lily's track record, Rose doubted very much that it would be the last. It seemed that unlike the rest of the male student body, neither Lily's brothers or cousins considered her anything more than the baby of the family and so had a tendency to react badly to any indication of blossoming womanhood. Lily, it seemed, was very much like her Mother; far too popular for her own good.

Down in the courtyard, quite a crowd had gathered to watch the kafuffle. The two Potter boys had cornered some poor, terrified fourth year whilst their sister raged at the pair of them, attempting to pull them away as she was pinned back herself by Hugo and Lucy Weasley.

Scorpius Malfoy, on his way down to dinner from the hospital wing, chuckled as he paused to watch the unfolding scene of sibling domestics over the shoulder of several other spectators. He was surprised to notice Rose was absent, he'd have thought this was just the type of thing an angry little meddler like herself would thrive on.  
No sooner had he made the observation than he broke into a grin as he watched her come running right into the thick of it, voice raised and finger pointing. He laughed and shook his head, Merlin that girl was ridiculous.

"James! Put him down!" Rose roared above the noise, sprinting to a halt at the entrance to the courtyard and glaring over at Lily's older brother who had the latest male offender wrenched up around the collar. Albus, who had been threatening the hostage with a raised fist, clocked Rose behind them and swore to himself.

"Rosie, you don't understand!" he turned to her fuming, James not releasing his grip from the boy's throat in the slightest. "He was all over Lils like a rash!"

"Yes and I'm sure Lily would thank you for that poetic metaphor just as much as she would for embarrassing her like this, _yet again_!" She marched over to James, yanking Fergus Sloper from his grasp and jabbing him in the chest with an accusatory finger.  
"What do you think you're playing at?" she hissed quietly, keeping her voice down as she glanced furtively at the surrounding bystanders. "It's bad enough you going around picking fights with fourth years but did you really need the whole bloody family entourage? Merlin, you've even got Lucy in on it this time!"

She flung a hand towards the three younger relatives still struggling around at the other side of the courtyard. Lucy, Rose's Uncle Percy's second daughter looked slightly bewildered by the family brawl. "She's a first year for crying out loud!"

James wasn't looking at her, he was too busy glaring over her shoulder at Sloper who had slumped, white faced against the stone wall.

Rose turned and sighed. "Fergus, if you like your face the way it is, I suggest making a swift exit."  
She gave him an apologetic smile as he stumbled past the two boys, Albus taking a threatening step after him which sent him running inside the castle.

"Honestly you two, she's almost fifteen! I think we should be able to trust her by now to be responsible for her own decisions-," Rose was cut off mid-sentence by an ear piercing scream that ricocheted around the courtyard walls and startled both boys who turned just in time to get slapped simultaneously by their little sister's flailing arms. She ran at them with such force that she'd even knocked Hugo over on the way and now as poor little Lucy attempted to dive into the tussle after her, she attacked her brothers in a relentless and high pitched frenzy of fists, slaps and screams of rage. Rose looked on in a mixture of surprise and exasperation, finally throwing up her arms in defeat and marching around the brawl back towards the doors.

"I give up!" she shouted over the shrieks and swearing, before turning to Hugo who was watching from the floor in amazement. "I tell you what, why don't _you_ sort out this bloody mess seeing as though we both know exactly which little snitch's fault it is it all kicked off in the first place!"

She glared at him pointedly, too annoyed and fed up with the lot of them to stand the nonsense any longer. It was times like these she got truly fed up with her family. It seemed she was the only one of the whole lot of them that ever bothered to _think_ about what they were doing. It didn't seem to matter, Weasley or Potter, every single one of them would just act on impulse, regardless of how irrational or inconsiderate that impulse might be. It drove her mad- couldn't one of them just stop, just for one measly second and really think about what they were about to do rather than just dive in, wands (or more commonly, fists) blazing?  
It didn't used to be this bad. She used to have her cousins Molly and Roxanne to help spread the voice of reason but since they'd graduated, the weight of keeping the family on the straight and narrow had fallen squarely and solely into her lap.  
And she was bloody well sick of it.

Rose was lost in her own angry thoughts, too wrapped up in inwardly venting her family fury to notice the tall, blonde figure quietly falling into step beside her.

"You Gryffindors do like to cause a scene don't you?"  
Scorpius' smooth drawl made her flinch as he murmured smugly into her ear. Her scowl deepened.

"Oh get lost Malfoy," she muttered darkly at him, refusing to stop and play whatever silly game he had in mind. All she wanted was to grab a quick sandwich from the Great Hall and then lock herself away in her room for the night. She'd be damned if she was going to sit and eat dinner with the rest of those prats after this latest performance.

Scorpius grinned and kept up with her marching pace. "My, Backbone Weasley does like to come out and play doesn't she?"

"Look what is it Scorpius?" Rose finally stopped, throwing up her arms and staring at him expectantly. "What could you possibly want or have to say to me that requires this much aggravation on my part?" His grin widened and he folded his arms, opening his mouth to reply when Rose held up a hand and shook her head.  
"You know what, don't even bother. I can guarantee you already that I won't find it even remotely amusing." She shot him a scathing look and turned on her heel.

"A word of advice _Rosie_..." She turned back in surprise. He didn't call her that; he wasn't _allowed_ to call her that. His grin appeared to have quickly faded and been replaced instead by the makings of a sneer. "Maybe it you weren't such a hag to everyone all the time, you'd actually make some friends outside of your own family. You should give it a try."

She stared at him in silence, her insides suddenly boiling up as blood began to pulse furiously to her cheeks. He quirked an eyebrow at her as he held her gaze, daring her to fire back at him. But she didn't. Whether she was simply refusing to fall into his trap or too shocked to argue, Scorpius couldn't tell. Instead, she clenched her trembling fists to her side and turned her back on him, quietly but stubbornly marching over to the Gryffindor table, grabbing a plastic wrapped sandwich from one of the large trays and walking straight out of the hall. She didn't look up at him as she passed.

Oliver Flint glanced at her in surprise as she knocked his shoulder marching out the doors. He shook his head and chuckled as he pulled up next to Malfoy who was still watching after her in a steely silence.

"Blimey, Weaslette's got a face like thunder on her! What did you say to her now?" He grinned at his friend questioningly.

Scorpius just shrugged it off and turned towards the Slytherin. "I thought she always looked like that."

"Well, I suppose but-"

"Let's just eat alright?" Malfoy barked, cutting off any further enquiry from Oliver who held up his hands in defence and turned his attentions to the food in front of him instead.

Rose ran, head down, for the stairs to the Gryffindor tower. She could still hear cries and howls of protest coming from the courtyard but she paid them no attention. How could anybody say such horrible things without even flinching? And what, she thought to herself as she felt the unexpected sting of tears well up behind her eyes, had she done that was so heinous that Scorpius felt the need to bestow his cruel remarks upon her?

By all accounts everyone knew he was an arrogant sod but he wasn't nasty.  
Not to the rest of the castle at least.

Rose closed her bedroom door heavily behind her, throwing the sandwich in the waste bin. She'd suddenly quite lost her appetite. She sat down on the edge of her bed, and pursed her lips to stop them trembling.

"Stupid albino," she muttered to herself. And yet despite how angry she was, and Rose Weasley was, at that moment, utterly and senselessly furious, she couldn't stop herself thinking about Scorpius Malfoy's bloody un-done tie.


	8. H is for Haughty

**The Malfoy Alphabet**

**H is for Haughty**

Rose Weasley sat down in the Great Hall the next morning in a daze. She hadn't slept very well, in fact she'd hardly slept at all and now her mind and body were beginning to protest. Her hair was back to its usual untamed state and dark circles rimmed her eyes as she yawned widely, slowly stirring a teaspoon of sugar into her morning tea.

She sighed and fell into thought, her younger brother munching away on a plate of French toast beside her.  
So she'd seen the nasty side of Scorpius Malfoy. She knew there was one of course but it was always hidden so well beneath an air of swaggering confidence that she had never been able to quite pin it down. But yesterday she'd seen it- albeit very briefly, just a quick flare of anger rippling across his face before it was buried beneath yet another smirk. She wondered idly what she had done to provoke him, awaken the dragon as it were. She hadn't exactly been polite of course, but then that was nothing unusual, nothing he shouldn't have expected and yet he had hit back so quickly and with such scathing remarks.

"Hugo, am I a hag?" She muttered idly, staring straight ahead and frowning slightly, swirling her tea bag around and around in her cup, still in her thoughtful trance.

Hugo looked up from his breakfast, half a waffle drooping out of his mouth as he stared up at his sister in bewilderment. "Wha-?"

Rose grimaced as the waffle squelched unceremoniously back onto his plate. "Never mind," she shook her head, clearly he was not the right person to ask.

Not that she should need to be asking anyone at all however. Scorpius' horrid remarks were exactly that; just remarks, words, something that she, clearly the more morally superior of the two, shouldn't have to pay the blindest bit of notice to. Besides, Rose chided herself, the last time she'd let herself dwell on that idiot's comments, she'd ended up even more embarrassed by falling right into his little trap. She flushed pink as she remembered her overly-enthusiastic use of make-up and hair tongs the previous Monday.

No, this time, Scorpius Malfoy was not going to get to her. This time, Rose Weasley would not reduce herself to his level. This time- oh Merlin there he was.  
Rose's face hardened as she watched him stroll across the hall without so much as a glance in her direction.

"Stupid ponce," she muttered darkly. She would show him, she would take his words and shove them right back down his throat. She had _other_ friends, of course she did. She just...couldn't remember who they were exactly.

"Rose?" Jennie MacMillan called over, jerking Rose from her thoughts as she edged hesitantly across from the Ravenclaw table. "I was wondering if I could borrow that book again? You know the one about-"

"Jennie!" Rose's face lit up. "Of course, you can borrow any book you'd like! I mean, that's what friends do isn't it, lend each other books and that sort of thing?"

Jennie MacMillan blinked in startled bewilderment. The last time she'd encountered Rose Weasley, she'd been in one of her infamous foul tempers, in fact on that particular occasion, Jennie seemed to recall being smacked in the head with a tube of toothpaste whilst trying to return said book the first time around.

"Err well, I suppose so-," Jennie started cautiously.

"In fact," Rose nodded to herself eagerly, "we should do more things together, as friends I mean. Don't you think?"

"We both already take Advanced Potions," Jennie suggested with a shrug.

"Yes and though we have tonnes of fun _there_, we should do more things out of class. You know, girly stuff," Rose was staring up at her expectantly. Jennie found it hard to see the element of fun in leaning over steaming, smelly cauldrons and chopping up cat's liver, amongst other things, all hour but said nothing.

"Well," Jennie started hesitantly, "me and Lorraine Davies were thinking of going to Hogsmeade this weekend, I suppose you could come along if you really-,"

"Perfect! Penny and I would love to go! And just come by any time and get that book!" Rose beamed as Jennie nodded dumbly and tottered back over to the Ravenclaws, utterly bamboozled. Merlin, Lorraine was going to kill her for this, she thought weakly. Rose Weasley was nice and all but it was a well known fact that she had the sort of mood swings that could rival an angry Hippogriff.

Rose smiled smugly to herself, buttering a piece of toast and mentally stepping over Scorpius to mark herself one up on the metaphorical score board. Penny, who had just sat down on the bench opposite, glanced over her shoulder at the still dumb-founded Jennie and laughed.

"What on Earth did you do to MacMillan? She looks like she's just been confunded."

Rose waved her toast about airily and smiled. "I've decided she's going to be our new best friend. I think we need to branch out, stop hanging out with my family so much, get some more diverse friends."

Penny arched a slim eyebrow as Rose busied herself in that morning's Daily Prophet crossword. "But...I thought you hated Jennie?"

Rose looked up aghast. "I would never say that! Jennie and I go way back."

"Right," Penny pursed her lips sceptically, "so when you said you would rather stick your head in Albus' school trunk than spend five minutes chatting with any of those Ravenclaw airheads, I must have just misunderstood."

Rose scowled at her. "Clearly. Anyway, we're going to Hogsmeade with Jennie and Lorraine Davies on Saturday so clear your schedule!"

"But I was going to go with James-," Penny began to protest but Rose held up a hand.

"Well James can wait, this is important Pen!"

Albus, plonking down on the bench beside Rose, snatched away her toast and eyed his cousin warily. "Rosie having another of her episodes is she?"

Penny nodded grimly. "I think it might be serious this time."

"Excuse you," Rose glowered, grabbing back her toast and shooting Albus a scathing look, "I just think it's important to broaden our social horizons."

"She's decided to befriend the Ravenclaw girls." Penny explained with a shrug and a roll of her eyes.

"But you think they're all air-heads-"

"_I never said that!_" She threw her hands up in despair, giving Albus the perfect angle on the now out-stretched toast. "Honestly, I kindly extend the hand of friendship and suddenly I _must_ have gone mad! I can have friends outside of our own sodding family you know!" she snapped at Albus who was frantically shoving the remains of her breakfast into his over-stuffed mouth.

And suddenly she realised, as she glared at her bewildered friend and cousin that she'd done it again. She'd let Malfoy get right under her skin and make a fool of herself and she hadn't even left the breakfast table. How did the little cretin manage it?!

"Oh forget it," she sighed, letting her head fall against the table in despair. This was insane; she was a strong-minded, mature, free thinking individual. She didn't need to prove herself to anyone, let alone _him_. Rose Weasley would not fall foul to the mind-games of Scorpius Malfoy.  
Well, she would put up a damn good fight at least.

Penny and Albus exchanged looks and shrugged. They knew better than to question the workings of a mind like Rose's. It was as if, sometimes, her thoughts just spiralled ahead too fast for the rest of the world to make any sense of. Her Father had often remarked fondly that he'd seen the same manic look of excessive concentration in the eyes of her Mother when she was Rose's age. A remark Rose had never taken too kindly to.

"Let's just go to class," she eventually mumbled, hauling her heavily-laden book bag onto one shoulder and, muttering a goodbye to Hugo who barely looked up from his newly stacked plate of pancakes, trudged out of the Great Hall as Penny and Albus chatted along merrily beside her.

* * *

Scorpius Malfoy was not in a good mood for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was a Friday which meant Care of Magical Creatures was the first class of the day and since Professor Hagrid had suffered a nasty Chizpurfle bite last week, he had insisted the sixth years only learn the _theory_ of magical parasites which, Scorius reckoned, couldn't be duller if it tried. Secondly, he had missed breakfast after discovering just how painstakingly long it took for girls to get ready in a morning by waiting for Florie Harper, who had snuck in and stayed the night in the boy's dormitory, to fix her hair 'just the way she liked it.' And thirdly, he hadn't been able to get much sleep last night at all and was now utterly exhausted.  
This, incidentally, was directly related to the second point but he didn't need to go into detail about that.

"I just don't understand why we can't tell people we're dating!" Florie huffed, fixing her French plait in place and smoothing down her emerald green-lined robes as the pair of them walked to class together.

"Because we're not," Scorpius muttered, gazing through the doors into the now empty Great Hall with a hungry sigh.

Florie pursed her lips and linked an arm through his, pushing herself into his side. "Oh well I've been meaning to talk to you about that." He glanced down at her and arched an eyebrow. "Maybe we should, you know, be a couple?"

He continued to stare down at her, his expression unreadable. "And why would we want to do that?"

Florie smiled playfully and bit her lip. "It would mean we wouldn't have to sneak around anymore. Say, if you wanted to kiss me," she stopped walking and turned him by the elbow to face her, "then you could just do it whenever you wanted. Like right here in the corridor..."  
Her smile became a smirk as she closed her eyes, leaning in towards him confidently.

Scorpius merely stared at her passively. Harper was an attractive girl, any idiot could see that. A nice figure, pretty face, a very _obliging_ personality- he allowed himself a small smirk as he recalled certain events from the previous night. In fact, on the surface, Florie Harper was every man's perfect girl.

But beneath the shiny exterior, Florie was..._dull_. Very, very dull.  
She was pleasant enough, sometimes even funny, but there was nothing special about her. There was nothing, Scorpius found, that fascinated him about her, nothing unusual that intrigued him, nothing unpredictable about her that made him second guess himself whenever he was around her. She was as easy to read as a colouring book, and Scorpius Malfoy was a boy that enjoyed some good literary stimulation.

A polite cough reminded him that she was still waiting, lips poised, eyes closed and now leaning slightly closer towards him.

He sighed, "We're late for class." And with that he grabbed her elbow and marched her along the rest of the way.

* * *

"Ah, Mr Malfoy and Miss 'Arper, 'ow good a' you to join our little class today!" Professor Hagrid, who was sat at the front of the class, using one of the desks as a seat, gave the two Slytherins a pointed look as they slipped into their back row seats with nods of apology. Rose, who had watched the pair of them come in over her shoulder turned back to her work with a scowl.

"What's the matter with you?" Penny whispered across to her as she huffed away in her seat.

"Lord Malfoy," Rose hissed venomously, rolling her eyes, "just strolling in like that all high and mighty with the latest bit of skirt on his arm. Some of us are trying to learn here, it's just _rude_!"

Penny grinned and shook her head, glancing up at the chalkboard and trying to translate some of Hagrid's chicken-scrawl into her textbook.  
"Gosh he really must have pissed you off. You were talking about him last night as well."

Rose's quill froze, poised millimetres from her workbook as she glanced across at her room-mate with a frown. "What do you mean?"

"You were talking about him, kept saying his name in your sleep," Penny shrugged, not noticing the pink flush creeping up her friend's neck and spreading across her cheeks like a hot canvas over her freckles. "Malfoy this and Scorpius that. Malfoy, Malfoy, Malfoy. By the sounds of things you two were having a riot-," she turned to grin at her but stopped in surprise. "Rosie? Are you alright? You look like you're about to vomit."

"Right then class!" Professor Hagrid's booming voice drowned out any reply Rose was struggling to give. "As you know, as part of yer N.E.W.T. exams yer required to 'and in a piece a' project work fer assessmen'." Rose's eyes brightened, all thoughts of last night's rambling momentarily forgotten. She'd been looking forward to this project for weeks. Although she had no idea what it was going to be about, the very concept of a big, juicy assignment she could really get her teeth into had just become a bright ray of sunshine between the dark clouds that were that morning's mood.

"Now, you'll be doin' this 'ere project in groups a' three. Which I'm afraid ," he chuckled at a group of three Huflepuff girls in the front row who were suddenly clinging to each desperately, "'ave already been decided for yer." The girls gasped in terror, one of them looked like she might faint.

"The group list is posted up 'ere at the front of the room," Professor Hagrid held up a giant hand and silenced the rustlings and scrapings of stools as students started to rush eagerly towards him, "as well as the name of which creature you'll be studyin'. After you've 'ad a look, you and yer group are free to go and get on wi' it. There'll be no class next week either so you should 'ave plenty a' time to hand it in next Friday. Now off you go an' good luck to yers!"

Penny hopped up from her seat. "I'll go find out our groups," she grinned, before diving into the throng of students now pushing towards the front of the room.  
Rose drummed her fingers on her textbook, already mentally timetabling in her library visit that evening to get an early start on the workload. She glanced over at the Hufflepuff girls and arched an eyebrow, another one appeared to have started sobbing. The fuss some people made over a silly thing like work-groups, as if it made any difference to your final grade who you had to do the research with! Rose would happily take any group and just get on with it, in fact, she thought to herself, there wasn't anyone in the class she had a problem working with at all.

"Oi Flint!" A smooth, familiar drawl yelled from the back row. "Check my group as well would you?"

Rose sat, suddenly motionless, in her seat.  
No, she was being silly, Hagrid would never do that to her, would he? No, there were over twenty people in the class, the chances of being paired with _him_, well they were miniscule surely? She swallowed hard, hovering above her seat and staring frantically into the bobbing crowd to find Penny. She had to know. She had to know _now! _

She took a deep breath to calm herself. She knew she was being ridiculous but she couldn't shake the feeling of impending doom. In her heart of hearts, it was as if she knew that the fates had a cruel twist in store for her; in her heart of hearts, she knew that, just like in a bad romance novel, she would be partnered up with Scorpius Malfoy.

Penny reached the front of the class and for a moment, as Rose held her breath and crossed every crossable limb of her body, she squinted at the long list of names.

"Rosie!" Penny shouted happily. Rose was still holding her breath. "You're in a group with me and Albus!"  
She leapt from her seat in a wave of joy, could it be true? Had she just avoided a fate worse than death with such spectacular ease?  
"Oh wait..." Penny was frowning at the list again. Rose froze, mid-exuberance.

What did she mean wait? What did _wait_ mean? Why wasn't she reading quicker? Sweet Merlin, was the girl blind?

"No, you're on the line below Rosie. You're with Charlie McLaggen," oh that wasn't so bad, "and...Scorpius Malfoy."

Now Rose really was about to vomit.

* * *

(**A/N:** Sorry, just had to use the ol' assignment partners trick, it's a true classic! Haha, anyway, hope you enjoyed that little chappie and remember: reviews make the world go round! ~ xxx)


	9. I is for Ignorant

**The Malfoy Alphabet**

**I is for Ignorant**

The door to the library had never looked so terrifying.  
Rose had been stood outside it, staring blankly at the door handle for at least five minutes not daring to take a step closer for fear of what lay at the other side. After Professor Hagrid had announced the assignment groups and dismissed the class, Charlie McLaggen had suggested he, Malfoy and herself all meet up in the library to get an early start on their allocated topic; the comprehensive study and analysis of the Cornish Pixie, its common environments, mating habits and benefits to the wizarding way of life in general.

But it wasn't the prospect of the immense workload ahead that had the young Miss Weasley quivering at the doorway, indeed her very core seemed to be pulling her forward with the eager anticipation of it. No, it was the thought of the amount of time she would now find herself having to spend in the close proximity of Scorpius Malfoy that had her fixed, motionless, out on the fourth floor landing.

Perhaps _quivering_ was the wrong word. In fact it was definitely the wrong word, she frowned at herself. Quivering implied she was scared and Rose certainly wasn't afraid of the slimy Slytherin. Her hesitance at the door had more to do with the internal struggle she was now enduring in an effort to compose herself and diminish the over-powering urge to hex Malfoy into the nearest bookcase that she would surely feel as soon as she set eyes on him. This was the library- her place of work, her sacred, albeit unusual temple of relaxation; it simply wouldn't do to make a scene.

Then again, a wry smile itched its way onto her lips, she knew the books and the shelves and the tables and chairs through that door better than anyone. If she _was_ going into battle, and considering who she was dealing with there was a very high chance of it, at least she would be on home ground.

"Rose?" She turned with a start to find Lysander Scamander heading up the nearest flight of stairs towards her with a smile. "You don't usually have a free period now do you?"

"Oh, no...," her eyes lit up, her insides throwing themselves into a fleeting somersault as she realised he must somehow know her class schedule, "we have a group assignment for Care of Magical Creatures."

"Oh I remember that one," he drew up beside her. Merlin, Rose thought as he casually brushed a hand through his hair, his smile really could make your outer extremities go numb. "Me and James got the Peruvian Vipertooth last year. We thought it sounded pretty cool but it turned out to be a bloody nightmare. All the books were in the restricted section for some reason." Rose laughed, trying to think of something witty to say but it seemed her brain cells were temporarily occupied trying to name the exact shade of Lysander's liquid hazel eyes.  
Luckily, he seemed not to notice the absent, glazed over look on her face. "What did you get assigned anyway?"

It took her a moment to realise she was obliged to respond. "Oh, err, Cornish pixie. Not the most exciting topic I don't suppose."

"Nah, don't be fooled. Those buggers can be tricky little things. Lorcan found one in the hedge back at home once. Mum tried to catch it and keep it as a pet, said it matched the curtains...," he shrugged and shook his head at the memory of another of his Mother's odd ideas.

Rose bit her lip to stop another laugh escaping. Her own Mother had taught her from an early age not to mock her godmother Luna's slightly unusual tendencies, that there actually was method to her madness even if no-one else could quite understand what that method was exactly.

"So," Rose managed at last, "worried about Sunday's match?"

Lysander grinned. "Should I be? Don't tell me James and Lorcan have come up with some brilliant new tactic to knock me off my broom?"  
He was clearly feeling confident and with good reason. His first act as the newly appointed captain of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team had been a total re-vamp of the player line-up and rumour had it, the new squad had a very good shot at the cup this year.

Rose laughed, now happily stepping through the library door as Lysander held it open for her. "Oh I think Albus is the mastermind of the team nowadays. Remember last year before the Slytherin game when he tried to cut off the tail of Goyle's broom and hoped she wouldn't notice?"

"Hmm, a true moment of genius," he laughed, flashing that knee-knocking grin of his once more, "utterly inspired if you ask me-"

"About bloody time!" The pair of them fell silent as they turned in surprise to find Scorpius striding towards them with a scowl. "If you can tear yourself away Weasley," he muttered snidely, "McLaggen and I have been waiting to get started for over ten minutes now!"

Rose narrowed her eyes before glancing over his shoulder towards a small table at the back from which Charlie McLaggen waved back meekly, surrounded by a stack of books. Malfoy also appeared to have spent the time very productively, as Rose could tell from the open sports pages of the _Daily Prophet_ lying on the table in front of his now empty chair.

"Always a pleasure Scorpius," Lysander smiled grimly and nodded at Malfoy as he marched to a stop beside them, all arms crossed and eyebrows high. "How are the ribs?"

Scorpius' grey eyes flared. "Oh just fine thanks, although Madame Pomfrey did say it was a good thing I was attacked by a Hufflepuff. Any other house and my injuries could have been much more severe," he smirked back at him bitterly.

"Clever Malfoy," Lysander arched an eyebrow, dropping his satchel to the floor and taking a step forward, "Have a lot of time to practice your comebacks in the hospital wing did you?"  
The corner of Scorpius' mouth twitched into a sneer and he too moved to take a step forward but a sudden, firm hand on his shoulder held him back.

"Now who's wasting time?" Rose cut in sharply, glaring up into Malfoy's narrowed eyes as he shrugged off her touch and stared down at her obnoxiously. With one last vehement glance at Lysander and a defiant clench of his jaw, Scorpius turned and marched back to his table, wrenching back the chair and sitting down heavily.  
Rose sighed in annoyance and turned to give Lysander a weak smile.

"I'd say have fun but I suppose 'good luck' is more appropriate," he muttered dryly, "I'll be over here if there's err, any trouble."

Rose nodded, watching him march over to his own table and pull out his textbooks roughly. Sighing again, she sloped over to Scorpius and Charlie, sliding into the vacant chair and rummaging through her satchel for parchment and quills. The library hadn't changed much since Rose had started at Hogwarts six years earlier, in fact she very much doubted it had changed significantly since her parents school days and probably even before that. The soft rustling of pages and parchment was often the only sound breaking the peace and quiet, the air was still a little hazy and musty from the dust that lined the bookshelves and fell from the pages of rarely used books and according to the old, much abused desk Rose sat at, _PP_ still 'hearted' _DM_, whoever they were.

In fact even Madame Pince still scuttled between the tables and stalked between bookcases, glasses still balancing neatly on the bridge of her nose although the lenses were quite a bit thicker than they had once been and her hair more streaked with grey. Her hearing too wasn't quite what it used to be and so she had taken to shouting _'Silence in the library!' _every fifteen minutes or so, just on the off chance.

"So what have we got so far then?" Rose set down her bag and looked over at Charlie hopefully, doing her best to ignore Malfoy and the somewhat unsavoury taste their previous days conversation had left in her mouth.

Charlie McLaggen lifted the parchment he'd been working on and squinted at the depressingly small amount of notes he'd manage to take down.  
He cleared his throat, "A Cornish Pixie is usually bright electric blue in colour and very rude in nature and it is also native to Cornwall, England."  
Rose waited a moment to see if there was anything more. When it was clear Charlie wasn't keeping anything back as a surprising finale she frowned in concern.

"And you managed to get _all_ that from just these few books?" she muttered, arching an eyebrow despairingly at the stacks of textbooks before them.

"Well, I got the last point just from its name," he shrugged proudly.

"Really?" Rose's eyes flew wide in mock surprise and she quickly pursed her lips to hold back some of the more impertinent remarks that flew to her mind. "And I don't suppose you have anything to venture Malfoy?"

He glanced up from his paper and stared at her impassively. "Not unless you're interested in the Chudley Canon's latest league position."

This time she had to physically bite her tongue to keep her thoughts to herself. As much as she would have loved to snatch that damn newspaper from under his nose and give Scorpius a verbal lashing that would physically bruise his ears, she was well aware that that was not the best way to kick start an efficient working relationship. Instead she took a deep breath, lifted the book from atop the nearest pile and flipped to the back page.

"Charlie," she beamed across at him, "let me introduce you to my good friend, the index."

* * *

By the time lunchtime rolled around, Rose Weasley was in a familiar trance. Now curled up on the bench beneath her favourite tree, robes and scarf pulled tightly around her to keep out the Autumn chill, she scrawled furiously onto her fourth roll of parchment, eyes darting between a particularly informative diagram of the anatomy of the Pixie and her own notes as she made up for lost time. Time lost primarily of course by Mr Scorpius Malfoy.

In truth, she had expected very little effort on his part and not just because of her own opinion of him. According to all sources, Scorpius Malfoy was the biggest slacker to ever grace the Slytherin common room. He was gifted of course, there was no denying he was one of the more naturally intelligent students his house had ever been able to boast but as his good grades had always come so easily to him, he had developed a work ethic to rival that of a particularly dense troll.

No wonder he never made Prefect, Rose thought to herself, closing her eyes and tilting her head back against the rough of the tree, taking one of her customary mini-work-breaks she enjoyed whenever the words began to blur together on a page from over-focusing. Glancing out over the school grounds again, she smiled to herself; Hogwarts really was a beautiful place to learn. As mushy as it sounded, Rose had never been anywhere quite like it and she'd been dragged to some of the most unusual, breath taking places in the world on the annual Weasley (and Potter) family holidays. Even the eerily enchanting Romanian forests which they'd seen visiting Uncle Charlie hadn't managed to elicit the same gasp of awe from Rose that the Hogwarts castle had on that first year boat ride across the lake.

Today's views did not disappoint and as she looked across the rolling grass, littered with dancing Autumn leaves towards the tops of the distant Quidditch stands, their flags partially obscured by low hanging cloud, she wondered if there was anywhere else in the world that could feel so amazingly still, calm and peaceful-

"ROSE!"  
Rose jerked upright with a start, her books and parchment tumbling off her knees as her eyes blinked wide open in surprise. A flash of green robes brought her to her senses and she quickly gathered her bearings in time to see her cousin Lily sitting down beside her, her chest heaving as if she'd just run a great distance and her long red hair tumbling messily over one shoulder.

"Rose, I need your help!" she panted, her dark chocolate eyes pleading with her cousin as if she already knew Rose wouldn't be a keen volunteer. Rose eyed her warily, all too familiar with the consequences of helping the families youngest and most brilliant (Rose had always thought,) resident schemer.

"Help with what exactly?" she asked slowly.

"Well," Lily paused, arching an eyebrow and pursing her lips as if wondering how best to phrase her explanation, "you see, we were trying to hex the House Cup through the cabinet so that if any house _other_ than Slytherin won it at the end of the year, a cloud of frogs would rain on their table," she waved a hand about airily as if this was something clearly customary that Rose should have been expecting, "but Filch came round the corner before we were done and so the spell backfired and the lid blew off the stupid thing," she shook her head in exasperation.

Rose processed this for a moment. "You blew up the House Cup?"

"Only the lid," Lily shrugged. "Anyway we ran off before he got a good look at us but somehow he managed to catch Portia Zabini and I just know she's going to drop me right in it." She sighed sadly, "Portia's always been the weak link in the chain."

Rose couldn't stop the small grin forming at her lips as she stared at her frantic cousin. At first, the entire family had been in a state of shock at young Lily Potter's sorting into Slytherin. After her two older brothers had kept up the Gryffindor tradition, it was naturally assumed the bubbly, always smiling, sweet little Lily was a shoo-in for the same house. Of course after the initial surprise, at which James had fainted onto his brother's equally dumbfounded shoulders, it quickly became clear that they really should have seen it coming.  
Lily had always been the one to come up with the latest sneaky plans to raid the kitchen after dark, the latest ruse to con extra pocket-money from her parents and the newest ways to trick her Uncle Ron into eating a bug.  
The latter of which, Rose had always found to be worryingly easy to accomplish.

She also had enough ambition to make up for both her siblings, who seemed quite content to spend their spare time mucking about on their brooms or battling it out in a game of wizard's chess long into the evening. Lily was her house's main contender for Prefect the next year but Rose knew she'd already set her sights beyond that badge and onto the greatest student body prize of all; the Head Girl-ship. But since that was a few years away yet, Lily whiled away her time helping to organise both house and all-school functions wherever and whenever she could, impressing her own Quidditch team captain with new strategies to help her beat her competitors to that all important snitch and, of course, making a name for herself with antics such as this latest debacle.

Oh yes, Lily Potter was quite the cunning Slytherin- the dark snake in the family as it were and oddly enough, Rose reckoned they all quite admired her for it; secretly even Rose's own Father who still refused to let Lily in the house whenever she wore anything green or turquoise (the latter because it was a _mixture_ of green and blue and he claimed he'd never much liked Ravenclaws either), much to his sister and wife's chagrin.

"So will you please help me?" Lily shook Rose from her thoughts with a prod to the shoulder.

She frowned. "What exactly is it you want me to do?"

"I need you to cover for me. If Filch asks where I was, I could say I was with you and then so long as you backed me up...," Lily threw up her hands- problem solved.

Rose sighed in exasperation. She wasn't surprised; this wasn't the first time she'd played 'Be Lily's Alibi' and she was sure it wouldn't be the last. She _was_ surprised however, that Filch had managed to catch one of her accomplices, in fact she was also quite surprised he was even still alive. She hadn't seen him lurking around for a few days and assumed he'd finally popped it. Merlin, that man was old.

"Rosie?"

"Hmm? Oh," she really was having trouble concentrating today, "and neither of your brothers can do you this favour because..."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Because they're both still mad at me about Fergus Sloper."

"Oh fine," Rose caved, "If Filch asks you were helping me carry books, how does that sound?"

"Couldn't we have been doing something more exciting? Like fighting off Peeves or a rogue owl or-," she clocked her cousin's stern expression and grinned sheepishly. "On second thoughts, the book thing is great."

A brusque wind whipped around the base of the tree making both girls shiver as their hair was sent thrashing around their faces. Rose's parchment flew from her knees again and startled scuttling across the ground amidst the crispy, fallen leaves. Muttering a quick swear word, she jumped up to chase after it, whilst Lily hopped up and down trying to catch the other pieces that had escaped from underneath her textbook. As Rose snatched up the stray notes and lifted her head, she frowned a little as she tried to make out a large black and green mass that was now headed towards them.

"Oh sod," Lily got there first, "I forgot about lunchtime Quidditch practice. Goyle's going to kill me."  
It took a moment for Rose to work out the connotations of Lily's realisation and by the time she had it was too late and the entire Slytherin Quidditch team was upon them, Tulip Goyle at the helm and Malfoy flanking her right side.

"Potter!" Tulip barked, presumably angry, although with her permanent scowl it was hard to tell. "Where's your broom? And the rest of your kit for that matter?"

Lily cringed. "Sorry Tulip! I swear it'll only take me five minutes-."

"For every minute you're late it's an extra warm-up lap for the whole team, you know the rules."  
The rest of the team let out a communal groan as Lily started sprinting back off towards the castle, shouting apologies behind her as she went. Tulip snorted to herself, glancing at Rose with a nod and a grunt before continuing on her way, the rest of her squad in tow.

Only one was now lagging behind. "What in the name of Merlin's beard is this, Weasley?"  
Rose flinched, glancing back from watching Goyle march off into the distance to find Scorpius clutching one of her stray rolls of parchment and looking down at in disgust.

Immediately, her eyes narrowed and she snatched her work away from him. She must have missed this piece when they'd blown across the grass.

"_That_ just happens to be part of _our_ assignment Malfoy," she muttered curtly, slipping it neatly on top of the pile of parchment she was cradling in her arms.

He arched an eyebrow sceptically, shifting his Firebolt 360 between hands. "It looks like a drawing of a dead cat."

"It's a diagram of the anatomy of the Pixie!" she hissed indignantly, although as she looked down at it sideways on she could see where he was coming from. "As you would have known had you bothered to do any research this morning."

"I've done research," he countered, mocking the slightly nasal tone she took on when discussing work.

It was her turn to look sceptical. "Oh really?"

"Yes as a matter of fact. I've learnt all about the Pixie Slavery Trade of '85." He cocked his head to one side and smirked at her smugly.

Rose opened her mouth but quickly closed it again, caught off guard. She didn't know anything about any Pixie enslaving, it hadn't been in any of the books she'd read so far.  
"What slavery trade?" she called his bluff.

"In 1985," he rolled his eyes as if speaking to a small, dense child, "the Ministry tried to enslave Pixies to deliver post when the owls went on strike. It all ended terribly of course when the Pixies held a senior official hostage for three weeks in protest."

Rose simply stared at him for a long moment, externally blank but internally, her mind was whirring at speeds Malfoy's latest model Firebolt would be hard pressed to match. This couldn't be happening, how could she be being bested by the Slytherin slacker? After she'd put in so much time, so much effort! And then it occurred to her...

"You're making that up aren't you?"

He grinned. "'Course I am, I don't know a blasted thing about Pixies. But I reckon if it fooled you, Professor Hagrid won't give it a second thought."

Rose silently fumed, her nostrils flaring as she huffed out hot air that formed little clouds of wispy steam in the chilly afternoon air. "You're insufferable, do you know that Malfoy?"

Scorpius merely laughed, his grin widening as he gave her a self-satisfied wink and started to walk away. "See you later Weasley."

She turned her back on him and started marching towards the castle, the frozen grass crunching underfoot and the heat rising to her cheeks making her tug at her tightly wrapped scarf as she muttered angrily, "Moronic git. Pixie Slave Trade my arse-."

"Oh, and Weasley?"  
Rose faltered, eyebrows rising as she turned slowly back around to face him again. Malfoy hadn't stopped but was, instead, now slowly walking backwards towards the Quidditch stadium, holding his broom casually over one shoulder with that infernal smirk still visible over the distance between them.  
"Sorry for calling you a hag."

The words echoed slightly around the grounds giving Rose a double impact as she watched him grin and turn away, chuckling to himself as he started to jog towards the stadium. She watched him until his messy blonde hair had disappeared from view and even then she found she couldn't move from her spot. For one of the very few times in her life, Rose Weasley found herself utterly speechless. There had to be an ulterior motive, her logical rationale was lecturing, Scorpius Malfoy was not the remorseful type and even if he was he'd never vocalize an actual apology. She was surprised he'd even been aware he'd done anything wrong in the first place.

With a dazed shake of the head, Rose turned back towards the castle and started, dropping her armful of parchment all over the ground again when she practically bumped into Lily, who had re-appeared in full Quidditch kit, broom in hand and had been standing quietly behind her as a very sly grin formed across her cute button-nosed features.

"What are you so happy about?" Rose snapped, snatching up her work again and glaring down at her fiery haired cousin.

"I can't believe it...," Lily's grin continued to widen. "You fancy Scorpius Malfoy!"

* * *

~Hate it? Love it? Why not review? Thankyou to everyone posting reviews so far! It's amazing to be getting such lovely and helpful feedback on this story ~E.T xxx


	10. J is for Jerk

**The Malfoy Alphabet**

**J is for Jerk**

Lorraine Davies tapped her fingers on the bar top counter as she waited for her round of butterbeers, doing her best to ignore the winks and cheeky chuckles of the wizened old wizards propped up on stools beside her. Clearly, it wasn't often the Three Broomsticks entertained seemingly unaccompanied young ladies. As she politely refused a crumple-faced man offering to put the four frothing drinks now in front of her on his personal tab, she glanced over at her three companions who all smiled back apologetically.

When Lorraine had first been informed she'd be spending the morning with none other than Gryffindor's resident know-it-all, she had automatically assumed that her and Jennie MacMillan's plans for a nice relaxing shopping trip around the Hogsmeade village were completely out the window. She'd imagined a bombardment of precise lists and timetables of activites, strict budgets and a general wide berth of anything remotely fun whatsoever but she'd been pleasantly surprised.

"Oh leave the poor girl alone Alf," the barman muttered, smiling politely at Lorraine as she handed over her two galleons and carried the first three drinks over to the girls' table, having to make a return trip for her own, much to Alf's delight.

"Are you quite sure you're alright Rose?" Jennie peered across at the ashen faced Gryffindor in concern. Lorraine nudged her elbow and flashed her friend a warning look; she, as any true Ravenclaw would, knew never to question a good thing and a quiet, compliant Rose Weasley was worth more galleons than you could fit in a Gringott's vault.

Penny Finnigan, on the other hand, was not quite so pleased with the new 'milder flavoured' Rose. It was bad enough she'd been forced to break off her plans for a romantic morning with James, but now since Rose was proving to be about as much company as Tulip Goyle at meal times, she had no option but to listen and nod along to the mindless chatter of Jennie and Lorraine. She watched the two girls in amazement, offering a weak _'Hmmm' ´_and a nod of the head when asked whether or not she agreed that Lucas Finch-Fletchley's hair had looked much better long, all the while wondering just how they found the time between gossiping, hair care and cover-to-cover analysis of new issues of _Witch Weekly_ to eat, sleep or breathe- never mind any sort of studying.

Perhaps it was a good thing Rose had fallen into some sort of trance, Penny thought with a sigh; she doubted very much the brain cells of her best friend could withstand much of this gibberish without dying a very violent death.

The Three Broomsticks was beginning to fill up fast, the older students of Hogwarts always resorting to the warm, friendly pub; easily bored nowadays with the delights of Hogsmeade that would have thrilled them in their younger years. Penny stared wistfully over at James and the Scamander twins sat around a corner table. Maybe she could make a dash for it and Jennie and Lorraine wouldn't notice? Rose, now frowning and muttering something inaudibly to herself, certainly wouldn't be any the wiser.

Jennie seemed to follow her gaze and let out a loud, dreamy sigh. "And don't even get me started on the Scamanders! Whoever had the genius to create _that_ twice deserves an Order of Merlin!" Lorraine giggled into her butterbeer.

"Their Grandfather has one," Penny mused idly, dipping her little-finger tip into the froth atop her drink.

"What? An Order of Merlin?" Lorraine frowned for a moment before a look of realisation dawned across her artfully cheek-boned features. "Oh that's right, you two are in the same house as Lorcan aren't you?"

Beside her, Jennie's plump, rosy face lit up as well. "What's it like being the only sixth year girls in Gryffindor?"

Their first year had been a bad one for the female Gryffindor intake with only Penny and Rose making the cut. The only two things this had really meant however was that the two girls had got a dorm room all to themselves and as a result they'd been naturally forced to become best friends. Luckily for the pair, their vividly different personalities and attitudes to life had somehow complemented each other and so they'd made it successfully through the following six years of Hogwarts with each other by their side.

"I heard Lysander tried to kill Scorpius Malfoy over a broom accident with you Rose, is it true?" Jennie rushed on, barely pausing for Penny's answer. Both girls were now staring expectantly at the silently transfixed Weasley. "Rose...?"

"Malfoy?" Rose glanced over at them, blinking quickly and seemingly startled they were even there. "Err, what sorry?"

"Speaking of Scorpius..." Jennie glossed over their confused companion. "Did you see him in Transfiguration yesterday? All hot and sweaty after his Quidditch practice..."

The two Ravenclaws began to giggle and swoon together as Penny glanced sideways at Rose with a scowl.  
"What in the name of Merlin is wrong with you Rosie?" she hissed, drawing her friend once more from her daze. "You've been like this since yesterday lunchtime for crying out loud!"

"Sorry," she muttered in response, eyebrows furrowing together as she attempted a weak smile. Rose really was sorry, she knew Penny must be slowly dying on the inside listening to the dimwit duo opposite; how those girls ever made Ravenclaw she'd never fathom. But no matter how much she wanted to shake herself out of this strange mood or 'get a grip' as Albus would tell her, she just couldn't manage it. She was in a state of shock.

After staring, utterly dumbfounded at her young cousin Lily after her surprise (and completely unfounded) accusations, Rose had hurried back to the castle announcing she simply didn't have time to listen to the mad, delusional ravings of a silly fifteen year old girl. This, of course, had sent Lily cackling into hysterics as she jumped and skipped away to the Quidditch stadium, singing _'Rose loves Malfoy'_ at the top of her voice. By the time Rose had stumbled blindly into her fourth period class, her head was a loaded mine field.

Of course it couldn't possibly be true; no, definetly, absoluetly not. She, Rose Weasley fancying Scorpius Malfoy? The very notion was absurd! She hated Scorpius, loathed every tiny aspect of his self-absorbed, self-centred, self-interested existence. Everything about him scraped at her nerves; from the way he walked, swaggering and striding around as if he were drunk on his own ego, down to the way he talked, his aristocratic drawl so casually superior that it made her want to smack him in the face every time he opened his mouth.

Rose Weasley fancying Scorpius Malfoy indeed, she scoffed internally, nothing could be further from the truth!  
So then why, a small voice nagged at her rationale, hadn't she been paying attention to a word anybody had spoken yet that day?

* * *

"You know, I could murder a butterbeer." Oliver Flint gazed up at the small wooden sign swinging in the breeze above the Three Broomsticks doorway, looking thoughtful.

Immediately Scorpius knew something was awry; Flint never _thought_ about anything. He glanced through the small grimy window and rolled his eyes as his suspicions were confirmed. Penny Finnigan was sat at a small table right in the centre of the room. Merlin, that boy could be as transparent as air sometimes. His gaze was caught however, by the girl sat to her right; he didn't think he'd ever seen anyone so pale. Wait..., his brow furrowed, it couldn't be. That wasn't Weasley was it? Blimey, he hadn't even recognised her without her trademark, tight-lipped scowl. Why on Earth did she look so morbidly ill?

"So err, what do you say?" Flint was trying desperately to act casual, leaning against the pub doorway, his anxiously tapping foot the only give away of his true eagerness.

Scorpius sighed and straightened up. "Fine," he shrugged, far be it from him to get in the way of Flint's latest stalker-strategy. The two boys bowed their heads as they stepped through the low beamed doorway, the heavy scent of musk and mead dousing their senses as they glanced around the dimly lit room. Scorpius made to head straight for the bar but before he'd had chance to step barely a foot in the right direction, Flint was guiding him over to the four girls' table with a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"Merlin Ollie," Malfoy hissed, "I thought you said you wanted a drink?"

Flint was already grinning and waving at a rather perplexed looking Penny as he tipped his head towards Scorpius muttering, "Look, I just need my wingman for the introductions alright? Then we'll get drinks I promise."

Malfoy gritted his teeth. "Fine, but it had better be your bloody round."

Flint clapped him on the back with a grin before descending upon the girls with a dazzling smile, or as dazzling a smile as poor crooked-toothed Flint was able to manage.  
"Morning ladies," he crooned with a non-too-subtle wink at Penny, "Mind if we join you?" Lorraine and Jennie giggled, both shooting excited glances towards a rather grumpy Malfoy stood behind him.

"Of course not!" Lorraine gave him her most winning smile as Flint sat down in the empty seat beside Penny, immediately attempting to strike up a conversation about their latest Transfiguration essay. "Would you like to share my seat Scorpius?"

He looked down at her oddly. "I'm fine thankyou," he muttered, before grabbing an empty chair from the nearest table and spinning it round to sit at the head of the table. Rose who, until that second, had been lost deep in her own thoughts, was startled by the sudden movement and glanced up with a frown.

Scorpius, tearing his angry scowl away from Flint, looked across at her and arched an eyebrow. "Alright Weasley?"  
He blinked in surprise when she suddenly turned a shade whiter and bolted up from the table, disappearing into the growing crowd.  
"What in Merlin's name's wrong with her?" he exclaimed, staring after her in bewilderment.

"Oh don't worry about Rose," Lorraine leaned towards him, waving a hand about airily with a smile, "she's been acting funny all day. Probably hasn't read a good book in a few days," she snorted and rolled her eyes.

Scorpius frowned but nodded silently. Odd behaviour like this was rather characteristic of the volatile Miss Weasley and yet he couldn't shake the feeling that it had been the very sight of him that had sent her running. It was quite a disconcerting thought really.

"Oi, Scorp!" He glanced up and scowled questioningly at Flint who flashed him a grin and tossed a handful of galleons across the table towards him. "Get the girls some drinks would you?" Malfoy shot him a look letting him know he'd pay for being such a cocky git later whilst the Ravenclaw girls blushed and fell into giggles once more. The only one who didn't seem impressed was Finnigan who was too busy peering anxiously around the pub for her runaway friend to pay Oliver any notice whatsoever.

Heaving himself up with a sigh, Scorpius too disappeared into the crowd.

* * *

Rose Weasley was a wreck. Gripping the bar counter top so tightly that her knuckles had turned white, she stared blankly ahead, repeating _'Pull yourself together Rose, pull yourself together,' _over and over like a mantra in her head. What on Earth was she doing? It was only Scorpius Malfoy for Merlin's sake, a boy for whom she had no significant feelings whatsoever and those she did have were all negative. There was absolutely, positively no reason to go sprinting for the hills and yet she hadn't been able to stop herself when she'd looked up to find those very same grey eyes she'd been so concerned with all day suddenly right in front of her. She should have gone back to the table by now and acted like the mature, totally indifferent young adult that she was and yet the only path her legs seemed willing to take led straight out the door. So instead she would just stand here she decided, away from him and away from trouble until Penny came to collect her on the girls' way back to the school.  
A perfectly satisfactory plan, she congratulated herself, if only Alf would stop leering.

"So this is where you ran off to, is it?" A familiar drawl murmured at her ear and sent a jolt of electricity careening down her spine so violently, Rose almost karate-chopped the nearest barstool. She gawked up at Scorpius with wide eyes as he casually signalled to the barman, leaning against the counter next to her.

"What's wrong with you anyway?" he glanced down at her, assessing her with a distinct lack of concern. "You seem to have turned rather green."

She began to edge away from him only to stumble into Alf's waiting lap. "Well, I err- no, no I'm fine. Yes, fine, very," she steadied herself as he watched her in amusement.

"Mr Malfoy sir," the barman headed over with a smile, "what'll it be today?"

Scorpius shook his head in bewilderment at her then leaned slightly over the counter. "Three butterbeers Frank and two of the usual...," he paused and glanced thoughtfully at Rose for a moment. "Better make that three usuals."  
Frank nodded and busied himself juggling glasses as Scorpius turned back to a slowly wilting Rose who was eyeing up the exit with a longing gaze.  
"So what is it then?" he pressed. "Why aren't you scowling and ranting at everybody?" She frowned weakly at him. "You're not ill are you?" he continued unabashed, "I swear if you're planning to leave me and McLaggen high and dry with this project-,"

"I'm not ill," she muttered quietly, sighing in exasperation. "I told you I'm fine."  
She gritted her teeth and turned to watch Frank pouring out Malfoy's order, keeping her gaze firmly and intentionally away from those grey eyes that were still studying her face intently. Scorpius didn't need to know, she decided, that there was a very troubling reason for her odd behaviour. Nor did he need to be informed that as his shoulder brushed against hers as he accepted the first of the drinks from Frank, that reason became very hard for her to either ignore or deny.

Damn Lily Luna Potter, Rose thought venomously, damn that little witch to Hell.

"Here." Scorpius slid one of the three short glass tumblers towards her, the dark amber liquid within it sloshing against the sides as he did.  
"Drink it. Trust me," he added with a smirk when she shot him a suspicious glance, "it'll make you feel better."

She looked back the drink and sighed inwardly. The state her head was in right now, she needed all the help she could get to feel even remotely normal and it _was_ unlikely that Malfoy would try and poison her in a public place, he'd have had to have got the barman in on it as well. Scorpius watched with a wry smile as she snatched up the tumbler and threw its contents back in one brave swallow. A fraction of a second later and Rose was coughing and spluttering, tears pricking her eyes as the amber liquid burnt its way down her throat.

"Bloody Hell Malfoy!" She choked, shaking her head in disgust at the lingering taste in her mouth. "What on Earth is that stuff?"

He grinned and sipped at his own glass, handing over a handful of coins to Frank who was chuckling at the pair of them. "Congratulations Weasley, you've just had your first ever shot of firewhiskey."

"Firewhiskey?" Rose hissed, blinking up at him and shooting Frank a furtive glance as she whispered, "but we're not of age-,"

"But Franky boy over there doesn't know that does he?" he tilted his glass towards the barman who now had his back turned as he served another punter. "Anyway, what did you think? Like it?"

"Like it? That stuff is lethal Malfoy! Absolutely wretched!"

He laughed and threw back the last few dregs of his own drink. "Made you feel better though. You've already started shouting at me again see?"

Rose grimaced and opened her mouth to send back a snarky reply but shut it sharply again when she caught sight of a slight, red headed figure standing by the doors over Malfoy's shoulder. Lily had just entered the pub, still tightly wrapped in coat and scarf, and had obviously spotted the pair of them alone at the bar. She was grinning like the flaming Cheshire Cat.

"Potter certainly seems pleased with herself." Scorpius had followed her gaze and was now frowning at Lily who had started wiggling her eyebrows towards them suggestively. "What _is_ she smiling about?"

"Nothing," Rose barked sharply. "She has problems, that's all."

Shooting Lily a stern glare, Rose turned and hurried back to their table, Scorpius following on behind with drinks. It seemed in their absence, James and the Scamander twins had moved over to join the group and so, as the pair returned to their seats, there were now nine students sat cosily around the small, circular table. Lorraine and Jennie seemed unable to believe their luck and kept gazing at each of the boys in turn before collapsing into bashful giggles together. This in turn was having an excellent inflatory effect on Flint, James and Lorcan's egos as they grinned and smirked and called each other out playfully across the table. The only two who seemed not to be having quite such a riotous time were Penny and Lysander, the latter of whom was now eyeing Malfoy warily as he sat down beside Rose whilst poor Penny was steadily getting more and more irritated at James flashing his cheeky grins at the two simpering Ravenclaws.

"'Course we all know Flint here won't be able to catch the quaffle for love nor money with me and James on the same pitch," Lorcan was riling Oliver, the other boys cackling away as the two wanderers returned to their seats.

Flint grinned and shook his head. "You always were a cocky sod Scamander. Now just remind me again which of us has the leading goal tally for last season...?" Lorraine and Jennie continued to giggle.

James winced and clapped his friend on the back. "He's got you there mate."

"Alright, alright," Lorcan laughed and tipped his half-empty butterbeer in acceptance, "but you just better hold on tight to that title Ollie boy. New season starts tomorrow."

James lifted his own glass. "And may the best team win!"

"Ah well, Hufflepuff it is then," Lysander, joining the toast, grinned as they all fell in to dispute once more.

Rose sighed and folded her arms; boys and their Quidditch banter. It never ceased to amaze her how one sport could still fascinate them all so much after years of competing. But then, as James and Albus had tried to convince her several times, that was apparently the beauty of Quidditch- no two games were ever the same. Rose disagreed. People were always throwing that damn ball through hoops and getting smacked in the face by bludgers and searching frantically for the snitch which was already half way out the stadium; she'd seen it a thousand times and _she_ usually stayed in the library during the school matches.

"Five galleons says Scamander's team pummels yours into the pitch tomorrow morning!" Flint was now shouting at the two boastful Gryffindors, fishing deep within his pockets before slamming a handful of gleaming gold coins down on the table in front of him.

Oh here we go, Rose thought, rolling her eyes in exasperation. She was well acquainted with James' overly competitive streak from the countless times he had come crawling and begging to borrow her saved-up allowance to pay off his latest wild bet. He conveniently seemed to forget his awful losing streak at the first sign of any new challenge and Rose didn't like to think of how many nice new quills she consequently hadn't been able to afford over the years.

Beside her, Scorpius seemed equally annoyed at his team-mate's petty gambling and had started drumming his fingers across the table as if bored of the whole performance, turning instead to eye up a group of pretty Hufflepuff girls just settling themselves at the next table. This, for some reason, served to worsen Rose's mood even further and she folded her arms and scowled across at her cousin.

James, unsurprisingly was back up on his high horse. "_Ten_ galleons says otherwise and a crate of firewhiskey says none of his Chasers get a single quaffle past my brother."  
Rose shook her head and looked questioningly towards the heavens. She was all for family loyalty and support but Albus wasn't quite the miraculous Keeper everyone had him pinned for.

"Firewhiskey?" Scorpius perked up as he whirled round to stare across at James incredulously. "Potter, you couldn't even sneak a bottle of the stuff past Filch never mind a whole blasted crate!"

"Oh really Malfoy?" Lorcan and James exchanged knowing grins. "It just so happens we have a number of crates sat waiting for us in the Gryffindor common room as we speak."

Rose arched an eyebrow sceptically. "As if. I've never seen so much as a bottle cap lying around."

"Well we weren't about to leave them lying in full view were we?" James shook his head at her scornfully. "If Hugo had seen them he'd have sold us straight to McGonagall."  
The wise, aging Professor was still Head of the Gryffindor House and, according to her Dad, was even stricter now than she had been in her slightly earlier old age. James and Lorcan were her most frequent detentionees, closely followed, for her sins, by Rose. She honestly couldn't help it though, as she told McGonagall each time; that Restricted Section was just _begging_ to be read.

"How did you get them into the castle then?" Scorpius wasn't buying it. He leant back in his chair, folded his arms and glanced questioningly between the two boys.

They both smirked smugly back at him. James tapped his nose with a grin. "Now that would be telling Malfoy."

"They have a map." Rose muttered darkly, shooting her cousin a withering look. "It shows them all the secret passageways. One goes straight into the Three Broomsticks cellar."

"Rosie!" They glared back at her. She merely shook her head and looked away across the crowded pub. After James had stolen the Marauders Map from one of her Uncle Harry's desk drawers, he and the Scamander twins had gotten themselves into no end of trouble popping up here and there out of one of the innumerable tunnels and passages in and out of the castle.

"Anyway, what good is a crate-load of firewhiskey doing just sat there you fools?!" Flint leant forwards, suddenly excited. "We should put it to good use! Get some more people involved; share the wealth as it were."

"What, like a party?" Lorcan frowned, he didn't like the idea of other people drinking his hard earned spoils.

"'Xactly! Spread the word, get a few more girls involved...," Lorcan perked up. "It could be a celebration of the new Quidditch season kick off!"

The boys mulled it over. Lorraine and Jennie had almost wet themselves at the mere suggestion and were now hovering inches from their seats in anticipation. Penny seemed to have zoned out all together whilst Scorpius was nodding, deep in thought, at the party prospect. Rose was still in a sulk, she was absolutely sure everything about this party would be highly illegal and break more school rules than she cared to count. If only she'd been made a Prefect she'd have put a stop to this already, but she knew by now not to argue with James when he was forming a plan. He, like his sister, could be very sneaky indeed once he set his mind to something.

"You know, that's not a bad idea Flint," he nodded slowly, his eyes gleaming as he stared off into space.

Lorcan, beside him, tapped his chin. "We could even use the Room of Requirement, there'd be plenty of space."

"Have to keep it hush hush mind you," a sly grin was spreading across James' face.

"Naturally," Lorcan looked back at him with a smirk, "top secret."

"Right then Flint," James turned to Oliver, half the table was now beaming with excitement, "you're on. Let's do it. A new Quidditch season kick-off party it is!"

At the other side of the table, Rose slumped down in her chair. Merlin, she could already tell this was going to end terribly.

* * *


	11. K is for Kretin

**And so it's back! ** The Malfoy Alphabet lives to fight another day! And I am so so sorry it has taken SO UNBELIEVABLY LONG for this next part to make it's appearance, just been such a hectic time but no excuses really. Anyway, here we are and I really really hope you like it! So good to be back at last! xxx

**Disclaimer: **I couldn't even pretend to own this stuff even if I tried...

* * *

Florie Harper strolled down the third floor corridor with an air of pure confidence and serenity. Her long, golden curls tumbled over her shoulder as she brushed them back with a graceful hand, flashing Lucas Finch-Fletchely a pearly white smile which sent him grinning dopily straight into the nearest suit of armour. Her skirt, remarkably short as it was, grazed across her thigh as she glided, smooth stride after smooth stride, towards the staircase.

Four yards behind her, Rose stomped along with a scowl. Her scuffed, uniform regulation, flat shoes did not click elegantly along the stone floor like Florie's shiny, kitten heels but rather thumped un-rhythmically along the ground. Her skirt, flopping helplessly just above her knees, did not get the nearby boys' hearts racing whenever there was a slight breeze and when she gave her own hair an experimental flick backwards, she almost took poor Lucas' eye out with the industrial sized hair clip she'd managed to wedge into her locks that morning.  
All in all, Rose concluded grumpily as she watched Florie disappear into the girls' bathroom, the two girls were as remotely different from one another as the spectrum of womanhood would allow. And though this didn't quite come as a shock to the young Miss Weasley, today for some unfathomable reason, it annoyed the Hell out of her.

"How does she _do_ that?" Rose hissed in annoyance, shaking her head and hurrying to catch up with Penny Finnigan who was now half a flight of stairs ahead of her. "It's as if she's just floating along! You wouldn't even think she was ever touching the ground if it wasn't for that incessant click-clacking of those shoes. Which, I might add, are at least two inches higher than was specified in the new uniform code," she grumbled to no-one in particular.

"Hmm, you mentioned. Twice," Penny muttered boredly, "besides, why the sudden interest in the life and times of Florie Harper? You didn't even know who she was until last week."

"Yes well a lot can change in a week," Rose snapped back, tugging out the hair clip and letting her twisting knots of copper curls crash down over her shoulders. Indeed, a lot could and a lot _had_ changed over the course of the last week and by the end of it, Rose had found herself in an unfamiliar and disconcerting state of uncertainty.

She was quite uncertain about a number of things. Firstly, she was uncertain why, all of a sudden, she had such an intense desire and ultimate life goal to be a blonde, short-skirted, high-heeled Slytherin. She was also rather anxiously uncertain that she'd be able to get that all important O in the latest Care of Magical Creatures assignment considering her current dead weight project partners. She was even more considerably uncertain that she or either of her two male cousins would escape expulsion if the highly illegal, highly secret, after hours post-match party James was planning for that evening was brought to the staff's attention.

But there was one thing in particular- one final thing- that she was the most uncertain of all about and it was this final thing that worried her more than all the others put together.  
She was uncertain about herself, her own emotions and thoughts; her own feelings towards a boy.

This was a boy for whom, up until last week, Rose hadn't spared even a moment's thought, a boy who had swaggered into her peripheral vision with cutting remarks and icy stares and then refused to leave her line of sight. Suddenly this boy was everywhere- in her classes, opposite her in the library, buying her drinks in the Three Broomsticks and yet he was nowhere at the very same time; never easily located in the Great Hall at meal times, never sat promptly in his seat when Rose looked for him at the start of class...

The only place she could be sure to find him was stuck firmly in her own head and Rose Weasley really didn't know how she felt about Scorpius Malfoy residing so prominently and permanently in her thoughts like that.

"So who will you be cheering on this afternoon?" Penny smiled coyly at her friend who was still staring grimly over her shoulder at the girls' bathroom door. "I mean it's not every day your cousins go head to head with your dream man in the kick-off match of the season..."

"I thought Gryffindor were playing _Hufflepuff_?" Rose muttered distractedly, struggling against her hair again as it scratched against her collar.

Penny quirked an eyebrow, "Yes," she nodded slowly, "and the captain of the _Hufflepuff_ team just happens to be the painfully handsome young man you've been swooning over since second year...Ring any bells?"

A flash of awakening crossed Rose's features and a burst of hot embarrassment quickly followed. "Oh! You mean Lysander!" she quickly cleared her throat. "Yes, I err, hadn't really thought about that."

Penny watched her suspiciously. It hadn't escaped Miss Finnigan's notice that her best friend and long time room-mate had been acting more than a little unusual of late. True, it wasn't unlike Rose to allow herself to get a little hassled every once in a while or a little too involved in some latest mastermind plot and yet this time...this time there was something Penny couldn't quite put her finger on. Rose wasn't acting quite so hassled, more so a woman on the verge of a neurotic breakdown. Not so much overly involved; more entirely removed from the world everybody else seemed to be currently occupying. It was a little perturbing to say the least.

"I'll tell you what," Penny turned with a chirpy smile and grabbed both of Rose's hands in an attempt to yank her back to present reality, "why don't you take your little cotton-wool brain off down to the pitch and nab us some good seats? Meanwhile I'll see if I can't rustle up some last minute giant foam hands for the game! So last chance, what's it to be Weasley? Gryffindor or Hufflepuff?"

Rose blinked slowly, half a mind still grappling with the possible complications of a hem when trying to _Reducio_ her school skirt.

Penny sighed inwardly. "I'll just get yours in orange shall I? Might as well be diplomatic."  
With an exasperated shake of the head, Penny gave Rose a gentle push towards the entrance hall. She stood there a moment watching her totter off deep in thought, and noticed, with a roll of the eyes, that her robes were inside out. Oh there was something bothering Rose Weasley alright but for the life of her, Penny simply couldn't figure out what.

* * *

Three wrong turnings and two near head-to-wall collisions later, a still very befuddled Rose found herself blinking into the sunlight. The day had turned out beautifully, one of those crisp Autumn afternoons when the sun warms the back of your neck but your hands still freeze in your heavy coat pockets. Rose drank it in, the sharp air pinching at her cheeks as she made her way slowly down the castle steps. Closing her eyes for another second, she allowed rationale thought to creep back into her brain and sighed with relief. What in Merlin's name was wrong with her? She exhaled slowly, brow furrowing in thought as she started trudging down towards the brightly coloured Quidditch bleachers. She wasn't thinking straight, everything seemed muddled and unclear. It was as if she was suffering from a prolonged, severe concussion which actually, she mused to herself, wasn't a half bad theory considering her recent encounter with a broom and a great height. Maybe she should check in with Madame Pomfrey after the match, perhaps all of this current nonsense could be explained away by a medical condition? Rose liked the sound of that; it was a neat, easily acceptable explanation.

Lily and her childish estimations of schoolgirl crushes would just have to suck it.

Smiling smugly and feeling rather pleased with herself, Rose picked up her pace, hurrying across the frozen grass towards the distant sounds of music and cheering. It sounded like the stands were already filling up.

"Rose!" Her head snapped round in surprise. "What are you still doing up here?" She turned to find Lysander jogging towards her across the grass; his broom held casually over one shoulder and with a grin excited enough to match the gleam in his eye. "I was hoping you'd have already got front row seats. Can't have my good luck charm too far from the pitch now can I?"

Now there was an ego boost if ever she needed one. She felt a swoon coming on. Sweet Merlin, was there anything those heart-stopping hazel eyes couldn't do?

"Don't be silly!" she breathed, "Why on Earth would you need a good luck charm? Not nervous are you?"

"Nervous? Being up against Gryffindor you mean?" he scoffed and laughed. "Bloody terrified to tell you the truth; Al really is one hell of a Keeper. Don't tell him I said that mind you."

"Oh I'm sure you'll be fine," she smiled, feeling the last of the fog slowly lifting from her brain, "Danny Jordan tells me the odds are three to one in your favour." Lysander laughed, tossing his bronze hair back into the sunlight and eliciting an odd sort of mewing sound from Rose as she watched his eyes sparkling, momentarily transfixed.

"Sounds like we might have our first converted supporter!" he fixed her with another cheeky smile, quirking his eyebrow playfully. Golly, she mused, he really was bloody gorgeous and did she really just use the word golly?  
"Anyway, I suppose I'd better let you go and get those seats...," he muttered reluctantly. She nodded and smiled and stared at her feet. "I'll err, see you after the match then," he moved towards the separate path that led down to the team changing rooms.

"Oh and, err, Rose?"

"Hmm-?," she glanced up quickly and in the next instant felt his lips swiftly pressed against hers. It was quick and intense and more than a little startling and she closed her eyes as a flooding warmth began to spread right down to the tips of her toes before it was pulled away all too soon. She stood there for a brief second, eyes still closed, lips still parted.

"Sorry," Lysander mumbled, his chastened kiss colouring his cheeks as well as hers, "Just thought I could do with a bit more good luck."  
And with that he turned on his heel and jogged away towards the stadium leaving Rose to sway for a moment in the sun before laughing dizzily and stumbling down to the bleachers.

"Where the bloody Hell have you been?" Penny shouted angrily above the raucous chants of her house mates as Rose finally pushed her way through the crowds towards the spare seat beside her.

"Sorry!" she grinned, her face aglow with a rush of excitement. "Bumped into someone on the way."

Penny frowned, shoving a giant orange foam hand into her lap. "It wasn't Harper was it? Oh you didn't try and push her into the lake did you?"

Rose merely laughed as she watched the teams stroll out onto the pitch, two small streams of yellow and red, James and Lysander leading out their troops. Rose grinned, the gentle bubble in her chest flaring up into that same warm surge as she watched James punching Lysander playfully on the arm, the Hufflepuff captain laughing and shaking his head cheerfully before gazing up into the crowds to the chants and roars of supporters and opponents alike. Rose knew he couldn't see her amongst the hundreds of painted faces, banners and flags but she still felt the burst of that good old Weasley blush drenching her cheeks and masking her freckles as she hid behind the foam hand, all thoughts of shortened skirts, odd feelings and peculiarly pale individuals well and truly forgotten.

* * *

"Unbeaten! Unbeaten!" James barged into the Room of Requirements, closely followed by an equally vocal Oliver Flint. "What did I tell you? Not a single quaffle past my little brother!" he beamed proudly.

Flint rolled his eyes. "You didn't even win the match Potter!"

"Well, admittedly, it was a shame about the snitch," he shrugged unperturbed, "but still, one hundred and forty to one hundred and fifty isn't bad. And like I said, not a single quaffle past Al! Now that is quality keeping."

Lorcan, who wasn't quite as happy with the games result scowled as one of the long lines of streamers he'd been attempting to hang across the ceiling swung back into his face. "And where is the boy wonder now ey? He's supposed to be helping us decorate this place before tonight. We've only got another hour."

"I believe I saw him being err, _thoroughly congratulated_ by Lucy Chang," James grinned and plonked down on the solitary moth eaten couch next to Penny who was busy attempting to levitate an enormous, sparkly disco ball up to the ceiling. "I'm telling you she came out of nowhere..."  
Rose who, against her better judgement, had agreed to help out with silencing and security charms, pulled a face.

At that moment the door was flung open yet again, this time to reveal a shock of white blonde hair. Rose clenched her jaw and focused intently on her muffling charm whilst Lorcan jumped down from his stepladder with a frown. "'Bout bloody time Malfoy! I thought you said you'd be helping decorate? Especially seeing as you've been trying to pass this whole thing off as your idea all afternoon!"

Scorpius merely quirked an eyebrow, "Now there speaks a true sore loser," behind him, Flint guffawed from the corner, "but don't be too hard on yourself Scamander. Just because your twin got the lion's share of the sporting talent in the family genes doesn't mean you don't have your own equally special qualities."

"So true," James jumped up and clapped a hand on Lorcan's shoulder, "I mean, just _look_ at these paper chains. Such artistry, such delicate handiwork, such exquisite use of colour!"

"Cheeky git," Lorcan shoved him away with a thump on the arm which quickly escalated into an all out scuffle as James sprinted round the room yanking the half-erected chains down from the rafters. Penny wrinkled her nose and lifted her feet as the boys rolled past her along the floor, cursing and laughing with each landed punch.

"Why is it, do you think Rosie," she sighed, "that we girls reach maturity so much earlier than our dear male friends?" Albus chose this precise moment to stumble in amidst the chaos, his ruffled hair and goofy smile leaving no doubt as to the extent of Lucy Chang's admiration for his on-pitch performance. "And here comes another fine example," Penny grinned as the others welcomed him in with a chorus of wolf-whistles.

Albus grinned lopsidedly as he flushed red, ducking away from James who was back up on his feet and trying to grab him in a one-armed headlock as a demonstration of brotherly-pride. Rose chuckled to herself, watching the testosterone floor show as she put the last finishing touches to her silencing charms.

"Someone's being oddly quiet for a change," a familiar drawl muttered above the racket, interrupting the fluid motion of Rose's wand and causing her to accidentally make the door handle sprout hairs. "Shouldn't you be lecturing us all on the foolishness of this epic plan?"

Still feeling giddily buoyant since her run in with Lysander, Rose glanced over her shoulder with an airy smile. Scorpius marked his surprise with a quirk of an eyebrow. "Oh Malfoy, whilst nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see my hypothesis confirmed and you all violently expelled, I find that gloating is an awful lot less fun when there's no-one left around to see me do it."

"I see," he eyed the back of her head thoughtfully as she turned back to her spell casting, "and so to avoid that tragedy you've actually joined the ranks of we reckless dare-devils have you?"

"Well, without me there isn't a chance this party would make it through the night without McGonagall and that _lovely_ tartan dressing gown of hers making an appearance," she turned and grinned at him before tucking her wand firmly back into her pocket and heading over to help Penny.  
Scorpius watched her go in bemusement. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen Weasley so..._un-irritated_. It was really quite interesting. He leant back against the now securely-charmed door, hand grazing his chin in thought as he watched the two girls before shaking his head with a grin. Maybe this evening would be even more exciting than he'd thought.

* * *

~Thanks ever so much for reading chaps! **L **is on it's way! Oh and if you've got a mo please don't forget to review! That would kind of make my life... ~.xxx


	12. L is for Lecherous

Just a short one this time chaps, but you have to give me credit for the speedy turn around. _What a gal, _I hear you cry! Enjoy....

**Disclaimer: **I wish this lot were of my invention but alas...

* * *

"Lorcan, this is amaaazing! How..How did you make it all look so..._amaaazing_?"

The ever eloquent Lorraine Davies tripped into the cheery Gryffindor's lap, sending a handful of empty butterbeer bottles skittering across the table as she giggled into his chest.

Lorcan, who seemed equally inebriated by this point, merely cocked the raven-haired beauty a lopsided grin before informing her how, "It takes a real man to understand the importance of a harmonious colour scheme," and handed her another drink. Rose and Penny, sat opposite the drunken duo, watched on in bemusement before descending into giggles themselves as the pair started _canoodling _in full view of the rest of the room. But despite the mildly inappropriate display of alcohol-fuelled hormones in front of her, Rose was finding it hard to fault James' impromptu party.

Maybe it was the dozens of shrieking, laughing party-goers around her, maybe it was the one, two or make that three drinks she had in her own system or maybe it was that pair of deep chocolate eyes that had followed her around the room all evening and lit up whenever she returned their gaze. Whatever it was, Rose Weasley was actually having a very good time.

"He's looking over. Again," Penny whispered, beaming as Rose blushed crimson for the sixteenth time that evening.

Rose glanced over her shoulder and was caught Lysander's eye which earned her a flash of that all too familiar knee-wobbling smile. "I don't get it," she muttered, "why hasn't he come over?"

Penny laughed, "I think he's trying to..."  
It was true; since his initial arrival, which had been accompanied by an orchestra of screams and cheers from both loyal Hufflepuff supporters and the gracious, losing opposition, the poor chap hadn't managed to make it three feet from the door. There were team-mates wanting to recount match highlights, friends and other classmates desperate to clap him on the back or shake the Captain's hand and then of course there were the girls. The swooning, the sighing, the giggling and apparently, Rose arched a slim eyebrow, even the stroking of the bicep that had caught the all important snitch earlier that afternoon. Such were the obstacles that kept Lysander Scamander from his lady love.

"Right, I'd best go check on Macmillan," Penny edged herself round a now firmly entangled Lorcan and Lorraine, "I left her vomiting up dinner about twenty minutes ago. Not her finest hour."

Rose grimaced and waved her off, glancing back at Lysander who was starting to look more than a tad agitated at the constant attention. He gave her an apologetic shrug and she smiled back, she fancied another drink anyway. She pushed her way through the crowds, it seemed almost every student from fifth year upwards had snagged an invite and who could blame them? The music was blaring, the booze was flowing and it certainly seemed like the good Hogwart-ian times were rolling.

Easing her way the final few feet to the booze stock, a sudden tug on her ankle sent Rose nose diving straight for the pyramid of plastic cups. With a very well-timed wrench on her arm and a few choice swear words she steadied herself, glancing from the strong grip now encircling her elbow to the crumpled mass on the floor that had sent her tumbling towards the table.

"Is that a _person_?"

"In the very loosest sense of the word, yes," the strong grip drawled. "Goyle also responds to troll, or occasionally hippogriff."

Rose shot her saviour a look, "_Malfoy_, you can't say-!"

He shrugged. "So I've heard. Besides, it's her own fault. For being the size of a fully grown man, Tulip really doesn't handle her drink well."

"Malfoy, again-!" Rose's eyes widened but she found it hard to conceal her grin. Scorpius dropped her arm and turned back to the drinks table, chuckling to himself as he poured out two glasses worth of the familiar amber liquid. Rose watched him for a minute, he certainly did know his way around a bar, before giving Tulip a nudge with her foot. A grunt and a loud snore confirmed the human-troll was in fact still alive.

"I didn't have you down as much of a drinker Weasley, especially after your ever so smooth introduction to firewhiskey yesterday."

Rose lifted a wry eyebrow and took the outstretched drink, "I find the odd butterbeer really helps one power through a family reunion, if you catch my drift."

Glancing across the room to where James was demanding an arm-wrestling rematch from Oliver Flint as Albus, totally alone in the centre of the dance floor, launched himself into an impromptu karaoke version of yet another Diana Ross classic, Scorpius felt he certainly did catch Rose's drift in addition to an over-whelming sense of gratitude for his ancestors' only-child-and-heir policy.

"So," he eyed her cautiously over the rim of his glass, "just how many Calming Draught's did you have to take to keep yourself from spontaneously combusting this evening?"

"Good to see that rapier wit of yours isn't impaired by excessive drinking," her eyes flashed as her smirk met his.

"But seriously, doesn't it ever get tiring being constantly annoyed and superior to everyone around you?"

"Well doesn't it ever get tiring walking around under the weight of a head that size? Honestly, I'm surprised you haven't collapsed beneath it before now."

"Weasley," he threw his head back and laughed, "I never knew you cared."

"I don't recall saying I did," she muttered curtly.

Still laughing, he raised his glass. "Touché. You know you're actually quite amusing when you're not impersonating a Hungarian Horntail."

Rose didn't lift her drink, "Is this what you do at parties then Malfoy? Saunter around the bar and mock everyone that comes for a drink? You must have a wonderfully fun time."

"It has its perks," he mused, "meeting new people for instance..." He trailed off as Katie Kirke approached the punch bowl, offering her a smooth smile which earned him a giggle and a blush in return. "What's the matter with you?"

"What? Oh," Rose suddenly realised she'd been sneering. How very strange. "I dislike alliterative names that's all. Besides, Kirke has a boyfriend."

He shrugged, "It'd be rude to discriminate," watching her from behind as she disappeared back into the throng.

Rose felt a scowl forming, "Right well, not that this hasn't been a blast-,"

"You haven't even finished your drink!" Scorpius instinctively grabbed her elbow to stop her leaving. Which, when he thought about it later was also very strange. "For Merlin's sake, you're in a half decent mood about as often as Professor Hagrid constructs a coherent sentence. At least let me take advantage of it for a little while longer."

Rose opened her mouth to retort but quickly shut it again. His eyes were locked on hers, one eyebrow cocked daringly, inviting her into those metal grey pools which has Merlin only knew what devious and mischievous plans in store.

Something very peculiar was happening here, Rose concluded. He must have had too much firewhiskey, why else would he have any inclination for her to stay and drink with him? Maybe she'd had too much herself, why else would she have any inclination to oblige? After all, they weren't friends, that much was certain. Or was it? Rose suddenly couldn't quite seem to remember.

She frowned and looked away, gaze catching instead on the tall, dark haired, dark eyed boy that was currently occupied signing Lucy Chang's Hufflepuff scarf. Merlin that girl must really love Quidditch. Despite her _almost-certain_ feelings for Lysander and the _possibly-obvious_ signs that they were meant to be together, there was still a little something that niggled her whenever she found herself around Malfoy. And it wasn't his over-bearing arrogance or his snark comments or general lack of consideration for any other living being. No, all that she'd come to terms with many moons ago. It was something new, something she couldn't quite put her finger on and certainly something she didn't understand.

"I'm sorry, am I keeping you from something Weasley?" She turned back to find him staring at her intently, the slightest hint of a smirk toying at his lips and Rose was suddenly aware just how close they'd been standing. The niggling was becoming a full blown itch.

"Fine," she challenged, snatching her elbow from his grip, "one more drink."

Malfoy's smirk spread into a full blown grin. "Famous last words Weasley, famous last words."

* * *

~ Till next time chaps. R&R if you love me! **E. Teapot xxx**


	13. M is for Malevolent

**Authors Note: **A lifetime of apologies for the lifelong wait for this chapter. Thank you for all reviews and messages in my absence- this story will _not _be left unfinished.

**Diclaimer:** Not mine, never will be. Uber jeal of JKR.

* * *

**The Malfoy Alphabet**

**M is for Malevolent**

"Malfoy, I said one drink!"

"This is one drink. Just in a very large glass."

The pair were sat at the bottom of a small staircase leading to neither knew where. It was a little quieter here, set back from the full furore of the party and a little darker. Suspiciously so, one might have said, had one not known that this was Scorpius Malfoy and Rose Weasley, who were merely tolerating each other for the sake of having little better to do. Except drink, it would seem.

"To a very _interesting _evening," Scorpius handed Rose a full glass of firewhiskey and fixed her with a rather unnerving smirk. Hesitantly, she raised her drink to his and, wrinkling her nose at the taste, took a hefty swig of the fiery copper liquid. Malfoy followed suit, letting out a sharp whistle of approval and reaching to inspect the bottle label as Rose grimaced beside him.

"Nineteen ninety five, not a bad year."

Rose quirked an eyebrow in amusement, "Consider yourself quite the whiskey connoisseur, do you?"

Scorpius laughed and topped up their glasses, "My grandfather took it upon himself to see I had a well-rounded education. I'm also thoroughly up to speed on the finest dress robe tailors in the South East and the best ways to throttle a House Elf. That last one was a joke, Weasley," he added hastily, as she choked on her next gulp.

"That's funny," she mused, swilling her drink around her glass thoughtfully, "I don't think I've ever heard you talk about your family before."

"I doubt you've ever heard me talk about _anything_ before."

Rose frowned, "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Well," he shrugged, "It's not exactly as if we move in the same circles is it? I mean, I have my friends and you have... Well, you have your homework."

"Oh exactly," she scowled and shook her head, "because it's _so_ unusual for someone to give a Chizpurfle about their work, I couldn't possibly have any sort of social life or even the faintest whiff of popularity. Tell me, is it just my exceedingly good grades that make you so sure I'm an unbearable swat?"

"That and the fact that you smell like a library."

Rose opened her mouth in indignation and quickly closed it again; _what did that even mean? _

She ground her teeth, angrily. "You know if I'd wanted to be insulted I would have spent the evening with my Aunt Fleur. Thanks for the drink, Malfoy."

"Oh come on!" He laughed, sitting upright and grabbing her hand as she bitterly pulled herself to her feet. "I'm only trying to wind you up. Merlin, you are easily flustered."

Rose didn't look amused.

"Alright, alright," He held up his hands in mock surrender. "I'm sorry. Just sit back down and have another drink with me?" She ignored him, turning towards the party. "No more bookworm jokes, I promise! We should get to know each other, it'll be a laugh!"

"Why don't you just blindfold me and throw me down some stairs? Wouldn't that be more fun?"

His face split into a cheeky grin. "I'm game for the first part of that, if you are?"

Rose hissed, scathingly. The boy was unshakeable. Surely there was something better she could be doing then trying to make small talk with the git of the century? Where on Earth was Lysander for Merlin's sake? Still afloat in a sea of fan-girls most likely and it wasn't as if she was _really_ mad at Scorpius, in fact if anything she was mildly concerned by how little effect his jibes were having in swaying her from complying. She supposed it couldn't hurt to stay with him just a little longer.

"Fine," she sighed, sitting back down heavily beside him and folding her arms. "Against my better judgement, top me up."

Grabbing her now proffered glass, Scorpius merrily obliged.

* * *

Elsewhere in the room, Lysander was having a thoroughly rotten evening.

After he'd managed to grab the snitch at today's match, he couldn't wait to get himself cleaned up and to the Room of Requirement for Lorcan and James' impromptu party. His mind had been racing almost as fast as his broom, a head full of Rose Weasley- who, it must have been quite obvious to everyone by now, was simply the girl of his dreams. His face still grew warm at the thought of their quick kiss earlier that afternoon and he had every intention of repeating that and more at tonight's festivities.

And yet now here he was, surrounded by girls who definitely weren't Rose, and with the real Miss Weasley nowhere to be seen. He hadn't even had that much to drink, not managing to make it over to the drinks table without having to stop and be congratulated by everyone he passed. He was rather starting to wish he hadn't even won the blasted match.

"Lorcan!" He managed to scramble his way over to the grubby couch, currently occupied by a mountain of limbs. "Lorcan, have you seen Rosie?"

Lorcan, not bothering to detach his mouth from Lorraine Davies' face, shook his head. James and Albus proved equally useless, far too involved in perfecting their harmonies for a particularly boisterous rendition of _Bohemian Rhapsody,_ and so, after another half hour of searching, there was nothing for it but to grab himself a butterbeer and wait it out. Hopefully, she would come to him.

* * *

"So you have absolutely no plans whatsoever for after Hogwarts?" Rose was staring at Scorpius, face aghast, with what must have been at least her _sixth_ glass of firewhiskey held at a dangerous angle in her somewhat limp grasp.

Scorpius shook his head and grinned widely, taking another gulp of his own drink.

"Not even an inkling?" Rose was astonished. This went against pretty much everything she believed in.

He leaned closer, till his nose was almost touching hers, the alcohol evident on his breath. "Not even an inkling."

"But- but doesn't that scare you?" she slurred, staring into Scorpius' glazed grey eyes with a glazed-over gaze of her own.

"Not at all!" He grinned again. "I rather like the unexpected. And change. You know, I've even been thinking about growing a moustache."

Rose's face lit up. "I think you'd look excellent with a moustache!"

"I think so too!"

The pair of them descended into hysterics, drinks sloshing all over themselves and the stairs. Scorpius couldn't believe how much fun he was having. More to the point, he couldn't believe how much fun he was having _with Rose Weasley_. Who knew all it took was fifteen galleons worth of Ogden's Finest to bring out this enchanting alter-ego. She was laughing musically, smiling brilliantly- a smile which, incidentally, lit up her lively blue eyes with a spark that he simply couldn't understand not seeing before. And wanted very much to see more of again.  
Her hair had come loose of its ribbon, tumbling down her neck in unruly waves and her face was flushed pink with the heat of all that alcohol. Really, Scorpius considered, she was actually quite gorgeous... _when she was drunk_, he hastened to add.

Rose, for her part, was having a wonderful time. She couldn't remember the last time she had laughed so much and not worried about a thing. Not even the volume of her cousins' latest Queen tribute had her 'tsking' in her seat. She supposed this was what they called 'being relaxed' and she was beginning to see what all the fuss was about.

Quite why she'd been so against Scorpius these last few days was becoming less and less transparent by the second, which in many ways, she mused idly, was similar to her steadily blurring vision. The faces of the other students whirling by did not appear quite so..._face-like_ as they should have done. Furthermore, she wasn't completely certain that _face-like_ was an acceptable adjective and all of this pointed to something else. But she wasn't quite sure what.

Beside her, Malfoy was busy uncorking a fresh bottle of firewhiskey with those pearly whites of his before letting the amber liquid slosh into two ridiculously large glasses; the ratio of drink in-glass to on-carpet suggesting that he might not have been perfectly lucid himself by this point.

He offered her a drink, which she accepted with a very uncharacteristic giggle and lifted it aloft to meet his.

"To Qudditch and parties and your cousins and," he fixed her with a smooth grin, "new friends."

She laughed again, her head falling back and cinnamon hair, swinging off her shoulders. "Don't be silly Malfoy, we're not friends."

"No," he muttered thoughtfully, taking her in through hooded eyes, "I suppose we're not."  
She turned her dark blue stare on him then and he felt his stomach clench, involuntarily. He wet his lips and tried hard to focus.

"You know, I feel like you've been out to get me this last week. Why is that?"  
She wasn't used to being this bold, especially around Malfoy, but the firewhiskey had other ideas and they were both along for the ride.

Scorpius scoffed, rather arrogantly, "Weasley, if I'd been out to get you, your head would be mounted on the dungeon wall by now."

She rolled her eyes, "Then why are you always so horrid?"

He sighed, sipping his drink, apparently mulling over her question. "I suppose because I'm bored. And you interest me."

"Why?"

"Because," he fixed her with a meaningful stare, the corners of his mouth beginning to creep into a smirk, "you're intelligent, funny and attractive. And I don't understand why a girl with so much going for her, tries so very hard to be an insufferable pain in the arse."

Rose gave him a half hearted glare, trying to ignore the hot flush of pleasure she felt, hearing that Scorpius Malfoy thought she was pretty.  
At that moment, their little corner fell into shadow as a tall figure appeared at the base of the stairs, eyeing the unlikely duo with a dark stare. It took Rose a moment to focus. And at least another one to remember the intruder's name.

"Lysander!" she hiccupped, bolting upright, guiltily. Beside her, Scorpius propped himself up on one elbow, squinting at the stern faced Quidditch captain in confusion.

"If it isn't the Hufflepuff Hero," he raised his glass again. Rose attempted to shush him between stifled giggles.

Ignoring Scorpius completely, Lysander fixed Rose with a questioning stare. "I've been looking for you all night. What are you doing here?"

"Um, well," Rose began, but struggled to think back to the point in her evening when she had actually agreed to go and sit in a secluded corner with her least liked person in history. This thought amused her and she snorted, loudly.

"You should get back to your dorm," Lysander said, quietly, grabbing the drink from her hand before pulling her onto her feet.

"Whoa, whoa. Hold on a minute, Scamander," Scorpius attempted to clamber after them. "Where do you think you're going?"

"You're both drunk." The elder boy's face was unreadable as he began leading Rose back through the party. "She should sleep it off."

"What if she's not ready to leave yet?" Scorpius pushed his way through the crowds behind them, his voice rising over the blare of music and chatter.

"She's had enough,"

"Says who?" Scorpius grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her back toward him.

"I say! Now back _off,_ Malfoy!"

Lysander had stopped dead, still gripping a dazed Rose by the other wrist and glaring over his shoulder at Scorpius, who was sending a fair amount of daggers right back.

Rose hiccupped and tried to blink away the blurry figures in her eyes. Why couldn't everyone just stand still for Merlin's sake? It was almost as if they were _trying _to make her feel dizzy. If they were, she concluded with a heavy nod of her head, they were doing a ruddy fine job of it. She was even starting to get those faint churns of nausea. And now there was something else going on, someone seemed to be shouting. Were they shouting at her she wondered? How terribly rude of them, if so. Oh dear, she felt herself being pulled roughly to the side, away from Malfoy. How very sad, Rose thought, for now she came to think about it she'd really rather been enjoying herself back there. Not that Scorpius must ever know, oh _Merlin no_, the smarmy git would never let her hear the end of it. She must remember to never say, in fact, best to ask someone to remind her that later, just in case.

Wiggling free of both boys' grasp, Rose lurched forward, grabbing a rather startled Lucas Finch-Fletchely and fixing him with the most gravest of expressions.

"Rose-?"

"Lucas," she slurred, tellingly, "you must never let me say so. Do you understand? Never, absolutely imbera- no, imperatively. There's a good boy." She clapped him heavily on the cheek.

All three boys exchanged bewildered glances, before Lysander grabbed Rose firmly by the waist and, before Scorpius had a chance to step in, had steered her through the crowds of party-goers and out through the door.

The corridor outside was damp and cool and pitch black. Rose gulped in the fresh air, she hadn't realised just how hot it had been in there. With the door closed behind them, all sound from the party was completely silenced, indeed, the only sign of anything untoward going on was the rather strong smell of sweat and whiskey that hung in the air around Rose's head. The sudden quiet was rather eerie, she thought, wishing Lysander would say something or start walking at least, rather than just standing there, staring at her as if she had grown a set of extra nostrils.

"Congratulations!" Rose breathed, grinning feebly as she attempted to relieve the weight of this unusual tension. "Very good quidditching today." She nodded enthusiastically.

"Thanks," Lysander sighed, tiredly. "I thought you didn't like Malfoy?"

Rose frowned and shuffled, awkwardly, "I don't. Not really."

"Then what were you doing with him all night?"

"Just... chatting." She shook her head to try and clear the heavy, drunken haze. She didn't much like this conversation, didn't like where it might be leading.

"You could've chatted to me."

"You were busy," Rose shrugged.

Lysander nodded and raked a hand through his messy brown hair, fixing her with a strange, sort of disappointed look. "I really wanted to talk to you tonight," he hesitated. "This isn't exactly how I would've liked it to have gone."

Rose swallowed quickly, taking a deep breath, still trying to clear her head. "Well, I'm here now."

He nodded again. "I guess what I wanted to say was that... I mean, I just think that you're amazing, you know that. But now, I think it's something more."

Rose's smile slipped from her face. This wasn't right. She might be drunk but she could still see where this speech was leading and she wanted more than anything to reach out and clamp a sweaty palm over Lysander's mouth, to stop this flow of wonderful words because it wasn't the right time. She was drunk. She was utterly, emphatically _hammered_ and declarations of love were a dish best served sober, that much she still knew. And he was mad at her! She could still see the gloomy set of his jaw, his folded arms. Why, in the name of Merlin's hairy armpits, was he doing this now?

"So don't you see, Rose? I'm completely and utterly infatuated with you."

Rose stared at him, blankly, realising far too late that she hadn't even been listening. She suddenly felt very very ill.

Lysander was staring at her, expectantly. "Don't you have anything to say?"

There was a long moment's pause, and then...

"I want you to know," Rose started, tentatively.

"Yes?"

"I mean, I feel I really must tell you," she blinked, uncertainly.

"Yes, Rose?"

"That...I think I'm about to be sick all over your face."

And with that, Rose surrendered herself to the booze. There was barely enough time for her to register the sudden look of horror on Lysander's face, the rather unattractive retching sound emanating from somewhere deep in her own gut or the flash of a very familiar tartan dressing gown, before her entire world imploded into darkness as all the lights went out.

* * *

**Au revoir for now, . xx**


	14. N is for Nefarious

**A/N: Holy moley! A double update to make up for my non-updating lame-ness. Enjoy wholeheartedly.**

**Disclaimer: Still not mine, weird that.**

* * *

**The Malfoy Alphabet**

**N is for Nefarious**

"You know," Scorpius drawled as he stared at the giant mound of manure in front of him, "I can't help but feel partly responsible for this."

Rose, stood beside him and with a face already like thunder, offered him the filthiest look she could muster. "Malfoy, you are _completely _responsible for _all _of this! And I hate you," she added as an afterthought.

The day, to put it mildly, was not going well. After waking up in the hospital wing with the worst headache in history and being forced to drink a gallon of PepperUpPotion (_which, incidentally, really does taste of chilli peppers- who knew?_), Madame Pomfrey had curtly informed her to report to Headmistress McGonagall. The morning had only worsened when, on shuffling forlornly past the golden phoenix and into the intimidating office, she had discovered she wasn't the only one for whom the death knell was tolling.

Scorpius had sat with his back to her and hadn't looked at her once throughout the entire meeting. Rose had simply listened, dumbfounded, as the Headmistress recounted how Scorpius had sought her out late last night, to explain to her about their secret little drinking party, just the two of them, and how _he _had been the one to sneak the alcohol into the castle. This, of course, only served to confuse Rose and make her head hurt even more.

She had listened, without a word, to the punishment they would both receive: a twelve inch essay on the dangers of alcohol abuse and the obligatory grounds maintenance- on this occasion a complete, wand-less tidy-up of Greenhouse Three, _including _re-potting the new mandrake crop. She cringed internally, imagining the look on Uncle Neville's face when she reported for duty. Lysander, the only other person known to be involved (_Rose silently thanked Merlin her security charms on the Room of Requirement had held up)_, would not be receiving punishment, as Scorpius had also made it quite clear that he was only trying to get the young offenders back into bed. _All praise Lysander Scamander. _

As they were dismissed, Rose had tried to fall into step beside him, which was hard work as his legs were at least twice as long as hers, to ask him about this apparent fit of gallantry.

"No need to thank me," he muttered snidely, still not offering her so much as a glance. Rose was about to remind him that she hadn't, "I'm sure I can think of a suitable form of repayment."

Rose rolled her eye. Merlin, the boy must enjoy affirming expectations.

They were half way across the frosty grounds before Scorpius finally looked down his aristocratic nose at her, "I heard you vomited all over Scamander," he said with amusement, "must have been terribly romantic."

Rose, who could just about remember this mortifying event, felt her face grow hot. "That's none of your business."

"Au contraire," his voice was high and cheerful, Rose was beginning to wonder if he'd even listened to a word of McGonagall's speech. "I think, owing to the fact that I saved your boyfriend's neck last night, it is every bit my business."

"He's not my boyfriend," Rose ground out through gritted teeth. With another wave of embarrassment, Rose remembered the exact topic of conversation that she, or rather her dinner and a gallon of firewhiskey, had rather rudely interrupted. Lysander, it seemed, had been infatuated with her- now she'd probably be lucky if he ever so much as spoke to her again.

"No need to sound so frustrated about that fact," Scorpius began to whistle.

By this point, Rose was very confused. So confused, in fact, that she grabbed the Slytherin by the elbow and yanked him round to face her. He arched an eyebrow, questioningly.

"We're going to be late for Longbottom-,"

"I don't understand," Rose scowled. "Why are you here? And why _did_ you save Scaman- _Lysander's _neck? You two hate each other."

"Hate is a strong word, I'd say we shared a mutual, passionate disliking-,"

"_Why?"_

Scorpius sighed in annoyance. "I don't know. Does it matter?" He clocked her glare and rolled his eyes. "I followed the pair of you out, missed the vomiting incident unfortunately, sounds like a riot-,"

"_Malfoy."_

"-And saw the pair of you being carted off by the Tartan Wonder. I was worried she'd come back to search the room after she'd dealt with you, so I ran after her and made up some story about it just being the two of us." He shrugged.

"And why let Lysander off the hook?" Rose glared suspiciously.

"Sweet Circe, Weasley, this isn't the Wizengamot, you know?" When her gaze didn't waver, he sighed again. "Well, I wasn't about to share my detention with him, was I? The mandrake's are bad enough without having to listen to that self-righteous git- Ah!"

Rose had set off walking again, _accidentally _marching over his toes as she did so.

"Gratitude, Weasley," he grumbled, limping to catch up with her, "you should really look it up."

And so, fifteen minutes later, Rose Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy stood side by side, facing a giant mound of manure, all ready to be bagged up, each armed with a rather unfortunately short-handled shovel. And no gloves.

"I fail to see how this is _entirely _my fault," Scorpius scowled at the red-head who'd turned a disconcerting shade of green. "If I recall correctly, I am not the one who regurgitated all over the castle."

"Don't exaggerate! And it's your fault for pouring me all those drinks last night!"

"Oh and I suppose I was pouring them directly down your throat was I?"

"Might as well have done," Rose grumbled.

Scorpius fixed her with a glare. "Your lack of restraint is something you'll have to deal with in your own time, Weasley. Right now, we have a lot of shit to shovel." Quite literally...

The task at hand was hard work and, perhaps predictably, rather smelly. The only plus side was that despite the weather (sleet was relentlessly rattling the windowpanes above them) the greenhouse itself was charmed to a tropical climate. This, however, also came with a downside, as it meant that the manure itself started to heat up, which only served to make the giant pile smell even worse. Rose had managed to find a peg to clamp over her nose, only to have Scorpius steal it and so there was really nothing for it but to not breathe.

Rather light-headed, Rose eventually collapsed onto a stool, yanking off her school jumper and rolling up her shirt sleeves. Twelve full bags of manure later and they'd barely made a dint in the mountain. And they hadn't even started on the mandrakes. McGonagall must have been getting crabby in her old age.

Scorpius quickly followed suit, tossing his tie atop of her shed robes and sitting down beside her. The sleet had turned to hail and each stone ricocheted off of the greenhouse roof, echoing noisily and giving the tiny, hot space a sense of isolation. It was really rather intimate and Rose found herself fidgeting in her seat at the thought of the two of them, cut off from the rest of the castle, out of reach and out of sight. She thought she saw the tips of Scorpius' ears turn pink and she wondered if he had had a similar thought, but then he turned and glared at her so she supposed she must have imagined it.

"I'm supposed to be at Quidditch practice," he muttered, accusatorily. Rose glanced upwards, where the hail was still hammering down. "It's an all-weather sport," he quipped, somewhat petulantly, following her gaze.

"Well, you didn't have to go chasing after me,"

"I had to make sure McGonagall didn't go back and start sniffing about! I've told you already and what _are_ you laughing at?" he growled as Rose broke into peals of musical laughter, that same rich sound that Scorpius had been so mesmerized by the night before.

"_What?_" he asked, trying to frown but feeling his lips tugging into a mirroring smile.

"You really do look ridiculous with that peg on your nose," she breathed, smiling properly for the first time all day, those big blue eyes flashing and Scorpius felt that unfamiliar clench in his gut once more. Last night he had assumed (_hoped_) it was just his body reacting to the whiskey, a little heartburn or indigestion perhaps. But now, well, there wasn't much in the way of explanation.

It seemed Rose Weasley was doing weird things to his insides. And he wasn't quite sure how he felt about that.

Another two hours of merciless shovelling, twenty straight minutes scrubbing their hands, and it was on to the mandrake pots. Although she could honestly say that she was hating every second of this, Rose had to admit it had taken her mind off of the giant mess that she would, from now on, refer to only as The Lysander Debacle. The infant mandrakes were pretty pathetic but wriggly and hard to hold still enough to re-pot, which took up the most part of her concentration but the rest, well, oddly enough that was being occupied by Scorpius. He was being unusually nice to her this afternoon- and by nice, she meant managing to refrain from royally pissing her off, which both puzzled and pleased her greatly. She assumed it had something to do with the fact that that fluffy pink ear muffs prevented them from speaking.

One thing she could remember with crystal clarity from last night was that Scorpius had called her pretty. And for the shallower side of Rose, who she did her best to ignore most days, a compliment like that, from someone who frequently had the likes of the unquestionably gorgeous Florie Harper on his arm, could sustain her ego far more than he probably knew. And far more than she'd care to admit.

She watched him surreptitiously from under her long eyelashes, burying a freshly potted mandrake in soil with those daft pink earmuffs on. She supposed she could see what all those other girls meant when they talked about his good-looks. His features were sharp, a little haughty for her usual tastes, but definitely attractive. His long fingers were now grasping around the leaves of another plant, his wrist and forearms flexing as he heaved it, effortlessly, from the ground. Rose swallowed, thickly.

She'd felt more confident around him today than ever before, despite the searing shot of embarrassment she felt whenever she thought about her drunken behaviour. At least, she supposed, Scorpius has been pretty inebriated himself last night and, truth be told, she'd had fun with him- up to a point. Yes, he'd still teased her but it seemed friendly, rather than meaning to hurt and she hadn't felt as bothered by it. By relaxing, she seemed to have loosened Scorpius up as well, who was no longer glaring and smirking at her over the shrieking plants but genuinely smiling as he mouthed things to her she couldn't understand. Rose was beginning to see what her cousins and Penny had meant when they'd first deemed him 'alright.'

Scorpius was mouthing at her again, pointing at the trowel on the workbench beside her. She nodded, grabbed it and leant over towards him. As he took it from her, a funny thing happened. His fingers came down over hers, the most fleeting touch of skin on skin and for absolutely no reason at all, Rose's pulse quickened. The hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention, but it wasn't unpleasant, far from it. Her eyes widened, her whole body feeling suddenly on edge, as if she needed to shiver and as she glanced up, she did just that. Scorpius eyes were on her, his expression totally blank but focused right on her face. It startled her and, as if scolded, she dropped the trowel.

It crashed onto the edge of one of the terracotta pots, smashing it down the middle and causing the soil and its mandrake inhabitant to come spilling out onto the bench. Without thinking, Rose ripped off her earmuffs and was immediately met with an Earth shattering screech. Scorpius started shouting at her, grabbing for the tiny plant and hastily shoving it into another pot but the damage had surely been done.

Rose blinked quickly, rather in shock. She certainly wasn't dead. She hadn't even fainted. That was good.  
She supposed these specimens weren't even old enough to do that yet.

She looked up at Scorpius again, relieved, to see that he was mouthing something at her again, maybe _"our too sore fright?" _Didn't make a lot of sense, admittedly.

He pointed at her, eyes wide. _"Are you alright?" _ Ah, more likely.

She nodded, reaching up to remove her ear muffs again but froze when her hand grazed soft hair and nothing more. She glanced at the ground- one pair of pink ear muffs accounted for. She looked up at Scorpius again, somewhat less relieved than she had been moments before.

He pulled off his own ear muffs and rounded the work bench, _"Tan zookeys bee?" _

Surely not?

He pointed at her again and then his ears. _"Can you hear me?"_

Holy Merlin's balls, she'd gone deaf.

* * *

**Ta ra for now chums, and don't forget to review if you have a moment- I love feedback of all variety, it makes my toes go warm. ~.**


	15. O is for Obnoxious

**Hello all, many apologies for another long hiatus. I really don't love this chapter, it's been re-written several times and I'm still not happy, but figured I really ought to post as I'd been so useless recently. Anyway, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. None of it. **

* * *

**The Malfoy Alphabet**

**O is for Obnoxious**

Lily Potter was enjoying her view of the rain out of the third floor Charms classroom when a rather strange apparition appeared on the grounds below her. Squinting out into the grey afternoon, the young Slytherin stared at the two people trudging across the sodden grass. Neither of them seemed to be wearing a coat and one of them kept stopping and waving frantically in the other's face. She tipped forward on her chair, propping herself against the windowsill.

The blonde one looked rather familiar. Tall and broad shouldered- definitely a Quidditch player, she'd bet Chaser by the looks of those forearms. Come to think of it, she inched forward till her nose pressed against the glass, so did the little red head trailing along behind.

Lily jerked upright so suddenly that she nearly went sailing off her stool, earning her a classroom's worth of strange looks as Professor Patil paused mid-lesson. She didn't care very much though, indeed, she was grinning ear to ear as she righted herself, because she was absolutely positively certain that those two idiots out in the rain were none other than Scorpius Malfoy and Rose Weasley.

And she was also absolutely positively certain that Scorpius Malfoy and Rose Weasley were holding hands.

* * *

"Malfoy, you do realise that there is absolutely no point in shouting at me?" Rose laughed at the frantic boy in front of her, her hair clinging to her wet cheeks. "I really don't know how to explain this to you any simpler!"

Stopping for about the tenth time on the short walk up from the Herbology greenhouses, Scorpius began gesturing wildly at her with his spare arm, his eyes still wide and frantic. His other hand was indeed tightly grasping hers, having laced their fingers together to lead her across the grounds. Rose had considered telling him that the gesture really wasn't necessary- she wasn't _blind _as well, after all - but for some reason hadn't quite managed to find the words.

"Malfoy… Malfoy… _Scorpius!_" Rose stilled his other hand, grinning at the blonde's obvious distress. "Save your breath, I can't hear a bloody thing! Just take me up to Madame Pomfrey and I'm sure everything will be fine."

Scorpius was staring at her in bewilderment, apparently unbothered by the downpour that was chilling Rose to the bone. She supposed he was baffled by her uncharacteristic sense of calm. She didn't totally understand it herself, but in the past twenty minutes since she'd unearthed the tiny, bawling mandrake and found herself rendered totally deaf, Rose's mood had stayed remarkably buoyant.

Perhaps it was her unshakeable logic which told her, without a doubt, that such effects must only be temporary (after all, the adolescent mandrakes only knocked you out for a couple of hours and this was much less severe), or perhaps it was the strange way that Scorpius had been fussing over her this past half hour. Merlin, the boy wouldn't stop touching her- grabbing her hands, squeezing her shoulders, he'd even given her a slightly awkward, too tight hug at one point and all of this, in addition to the joy of being able to leave the foul-smelling greenhouse early, was keeping the dopey smile firmly plastered on Rose's face.

Squeezing her hand tightly again, Scorpius set off across the grounds, pulling Rose along beside him. The weather was truly miserable, the rain heavy and unrelenting and Rose found herself watching the water droplets clinging to the hair at the back of Scorpius' neck and eyelashes.

He caught her looking and frowned, mouthing a concerned _"What?"_

She shook her head quickly, hoping the cold would keep the hot flush from her cheeks.

Eventually they made it- hand in hand- up the castle steps and into the entrance hall, a trail of wet and muddy footprints in their wake. The castle was quiet, class still being in session, and so the two pressed on unheeded as they wound their way up flight after flight of stairs. In fact, they'd almost made it right to the hospital wing before meeting any other students.

They paused on the stairwell, stepping aside to let the group of seventh years bustle past – most with their noses buried in a NEWT level textbook - and Rose was all set for moving on again when she realised, from the tug on her hand, that Scorpius had stopped dead. And, on inspection, so had one of the seventh years.

Scorpius and Lysander were glaring at each other across the width of the staircase, Lysander's scowl darkening as he caught sight of their interlocked hands. Rose immediately tried to pull hers free, but Scorpius' grip only tightened.

The three of them stood in a peculiar, silent triangle for what seemed like forever. Rose watched, wide eyed, as the older boy finally took a step towards the blond, his jaw flexing.

"Mind if I have a word with your new girlfriend, alone, Malfoy?" Lysander grimaced.

Rose, of course, couldn't hear a word and could do nothing but glance nervously between the two boys. Scorpius appeared to have started grinning, which in turn was just making Lysander look more and more angry.

Scorpius glanced at Rose, who was shaking her head questioningly and looking at him for an explanation. And then he looked at Lysander, who was still delivering a glare that suggested he wanted nothing more than to punch Scorpius square between the eyes.

"By all means, Scamander," his grin widened. "I suppose I can spare her for a minute or two. Rose?"

Utterly clueless, Rose allowed herself to be manoeuvred so she was standing directly in front of Lysander. "Wait, Malfoy-?" she started but Scorpius simply patted her hand with a non-too-innocent smirk.

"It's aright, love," he shushed her. "I won't be too far away."

Lysander's face practically blazed purple.

Rose stared in bewilderment as Scorpius stuck his hands in his pockets and swaggered off down the nearest corridor. What in the name of Merlin's blue balls was going on? It was unbelievably frustrating, being the only one who couldn't hear a blasted thing!

She stole a glance at Lysander, who was looking at her very, very strangely. She supposed he was still angry or maybe just incredibly grossed out by the whole love declaration/vomiting incident, and though she knew she really ought to speak to him – _apologise _– for her behaviour, she couldn't understand why he would want her to do it now, when there was only one pair of fully functioning ears between them.

Rose shuffled awkwardly. "Did he explain-,"

"He didn't have to," Lysander growled. "I guess I should've realised last night. He was acting so oddly in McGonagol's office."

Rose stared at him blankly. She supposed she should probably be trying to lip read but every time she looked at his mouth she could only remember the way it had looked so downturned and defeated at the party – and of course, that lovely kiss before his Quidditch match.

She frowned sadly and looked away.

Lysander sighed. "I just don't understand, Rose. Why didn't you tell me that you had feelings for Malfoy?"

Rose could only offer him a confused shrug.

"I mean, do you feel anything for me at all?" he pressed on, apparently undeterred by the totally lost look on Rose's face.

Rose shook her head. "I'm sorry, I really don't understand."

This, apparently, was not what he wanted to hear. He narrowed his eyes at her, shaking his head angrily. "How could you possibly be confused?" he snapped, struggling not to raise his voice. "I brought you flowers, kissed you, told you that I _love _you, for Merlin's sake! And you don't even have the decency to tell me you're picking Malfoy – _Malfoy, _of all people! – over me?"

Just his expression made Rose flinch back against the wall.

"That's enough, Scamander!" Scorpius had suddenly re-appeared at the top of the staircase, quickly jogging down to grab Rose by the hand and stepping between her and the much taller boy. "I think it's time you caught up with your friends." He matched Lysander's furious gaze with one of his own.

Lysander who, by this point, looked more hurt than angry, threw Rose one last look. "I hope the two of you are very happy together," he muttered, before swinging his satchel over one shoulder and setting off down the stairs – making sure to knock Scorpius' shoulder as he passed.

Rose watched him go, totally baffled, before managing to extricate her hand from Scorpius'. "What the Hell was that about?" she shouted at him, wiping her suddenly clammy palm against her robes.

At first Scorpius seemed not to have heard her, still staring darkly after the other boy and Rose wondered if she'd started to lose the power of vocal speech as well. So, just to be sure, she thumped him on the arm.

"Oi!"

"Well?" she glared at him.

Scorpius shook his head - whether as an answer or just to bring himself round, Rose wasn't sure - before fixing her with another of those easy grins. "No idea," he mouthed slowly, adding a shrug for her clarification. "Come on, Weasley. Best get you to the hospital wing."

And then he snatched up her hand again and started dragging her up the stairs without another word.


End file.
